SSH into the host where the VM is running.
Type ‘esxtop‘
Press ’m‘ for memory view
Press ‘f‘ to add a field
If there is no asterix by the ‘MCTL‘ item, press ‘I‘
Return to view
‘MCTL‘ column shows ‘Y‘ or ‘N‘ indicating whether balloon driver is running.
‘MCTLSZ‘ indicates the amount of guest memory reclaimed by balloon driver.
If the balloon driver is not running then install VMware Tools.
References:
VMware has officially stated that in the future, ESXi will be the exclusive focus, not ESX. Third party vendors were notified over a year ago and their development efforts reflect this.
ESX is built on 64-bit Linux kernel 2.6 and is compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 & CentOS version 5.2. About 90% of all ESX patches, many of which require rebooting are related to Red Hat. The ESXi’s appliance-based model requires a lot less patching and is generally more secure and reliable.
You don’t need a service console unless you already have a lot of existing service console scripts that you don’t wish to port over. DCUI combined with RCLI, PowerCLI and vCLI gives you what you need, but removes some of the hidden dangers of the service console. In the service console it is easy to do destructive stuff that you should never be allowed to do. ESXi is a lot cleaner, no need for service console configuration tasks. The service console can only manage one host, RCLI can manage multiple hosts.
DCUI (use to initially set super-user password & IP info) then use tools below:
ESXi uses a 70Mb RAM footprint vs. 300Mb RAM + 600Mb Swap with ESX, boots much more quickly.
Use vSphere Client through the vCenter Server instead… much better. If your excuse is that vSphere Client is only for Windows check this out:
Using vSphere Client on Ubuntu Linux with Single Application RDP.
