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Quick Tip - Suppress in-guest VMware Tools update notifications

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If you have a Virtual Machine that has VMware Tools installed and a newer version is available, end users within the guest operating system might see a status bar notification with the following message:

A newer version of Tools is available for this VM

Most organizations already have a well defined process in rolling out new software updates including VMware Tools, so while the in-guest notification about a new version of VMware Tools can be useful for some, it either not applicable or adds unnecessary distractions for their end users. I recently learned that you can disable these in-guest notification by applying one of the following configurations:

Windows

  • Disable VMware Tools notification at system Level
    • Set the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\VMware, Inc.\VMware Tools\ShowTray to 0 (REG_DWORD)
  • Disable VMware Tools In-Guest Notification at the user Level
    • Set the following registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VMware, Inc.\VMware Tools\ShowTray to 0 (REG_DWORD)

Feedback has already been acknowledge to add this information to the official VMware Tools documentation and that it may be possible to configure these notification settings using the VMware Tools configuration file (tools.conf) in the future, further simplifying any configurations related to VMware Tools.

Quick Tip - Retrieving vSAN File Share Network Permissions using vSAN API & PowerCLI

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When creating a new vSAN File Share, which is powered by vSAN File Services,  additional network access controls (no access, allow access from any IP or custom) can be configured.


To view the configured network permissions, users must expand each file share to get the relevant information. For those interesting in automating the retrieval of this information for reporting and/or compliance purposes, you can use the vSAN Management API and specifically the vSAN queryFileShares() API.

The vSAN File Share API can also be consumed through PowerCLI using the Get-VsanFileShare cmdlet, but the network permission configuration is not part of the default output which might lead users to believe this information is not available.

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Quick Tip - SSH Server, Client & Authorized Key Configurations for ESXi 8.0 Update 2 and later

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The general best practice is to disable SSH on your ESXi host by default and if/when you need access, you can turn it on temporarily and disable it when you have completed your task.

For users that need to modify the default SSH configurations whether that is on the server side, client side or setting up SSH authorized keys, this was historically accomplished by manipulating the various SSH configuration files and then reloading the service, if applicable.

With the introduction of the ESXi Configuration Store in vSphere 7.0 Update 1, the process is now different with ESXi 8.0 Update 2 and later for services that requires a configuration file to run such as SSH, NTP or SNMP to name a few.

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