AlmaLinux Guest Tools

[michael2z]

I am trying the new AlmaLinux OS based off of CentOS 8. AlmaLinux OS is a 1:1 binary compatible fork of RHEL 8. I installed the required guest rpms, but AlmaLinux OS isn't recognized by the installer, so the required /var/cache/xe-linux-distribution file is not generated.

Can I manually add that distribution file? If so, not sure how to do it.

[michael2z]

@michael2z I just noticed the thread about new a guest tools iso. I'll give that a try and post my results there

[tony]

I tried installing via epel-release repository, the install went fine but the service doesn't start properly. The version is xe-guest-utilities-latest-7.21.0-1.el8.x86_64 installed via dnf.

Jul 27 12:05:03 localhost.localdomain systemd[1]: Starting Linux Guest Agent...
Jul 27 12:05:03 localhost.localdomain sysctl[52086]: net.ipv4.conf.all.arp_notify = 1
Jul 27 12:05:03 localhost.localdomain systemd[1]: xe-linux-distribution.service: Control process exited, code=exited status=1
Jul 27 12:05:03 localhost.localdomain systemd[1]: xe-linux-distribution.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Jul 27 12:05:03 localhost.localdomain systemd[1]: Failed to start Linux Guest Agent.

[tony]

Using this command to install from the old guest tools ISO worked fine

./install.sh -d rhel -m 8

the file version is xe-guest-utilities-latest-7.16.0-2.el8.x86_64, the distro logo is not showing though.

[Bambos]

@tony after some years, i had the same issue and i did the same thing. Still the logo is not appearing on XO interface.

[olivierlambert]

Distro logo is another story and unrelated to the initial question (logo display is purely an XO thing)

[Shufflebox]

FYI and for what it's worth - In my experience as of Jan 2025, the process aligns with RHEL and appears to have no issues.

From a fresh install of Alma 9.5:

• sudo dnf install epel-release
• sudo dnf install xe-guest-utilities-latest
• sudo systemctl enable --now xe-inux-distribution

graphs and other Xen Orchestra behaviours work as expected.