Correcting CPU Usage Due to VMware Tools on Linux VMs

You may notice at times that the CPU usage of your Linux VM's, either it be a Cloud VPS, a Cloud Enterprise or even a Cloud Dedicated, that the CPU usage associated with the "vmware-guestd" service is high or higher than normal. This is due to a bug with the Vmware Tools that causes the CPU to rise. However it possible to correct this by either restarting the Vmware service on the VM or by creating a Cronjob that will restart the service.

Restarting VMware Tools Manually

To restart the service manually, you will need to log onto your VM.
Once logged in you will need to type the following command;

"service vmware-tools stop & service vmware-tools start"

This will stop the service, verify that it has been stopped and it will then start the service backup, freeing any CPU resources in the process.

Restarting VMware Tools via Cron

This process is similar to first, only this time you will create a cronjob that will restart the service for you, without your interaction. This is not recommended if you are not familar with creating cronjobs.

To do this you will still need to be logged onto your VM, however once you are logged on you will need to type the following;

"crontab -e"

This will take you to a text editor that you will use to create the cronjob. For this example we want the cronjob to restart Vmware Tools every day, so we enter in the following command;

"0 0 * * * service vmware-tools stop & service vmware-tools start"

Make sure that you save the file.