The containerinfo plugin gathers the list of running containers inside the Linux guest.

Procedure

  1. Retrieving data: For Linux guest, the data collected by containerinfo plugin is retrieved as follows:

    vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.containerinfo"

  2. Changing poll-interval: For Linux guest, the containerinfo plugin captures information in every 6 hours by default.
    Guest admin can configure this poll-interval at anytime as follows:

    vmware-toolbox-cmd config set containerinfo poll-interval <new value in seconds>

    To revert the containerinfo poll-interval to default value, run the following command:

    vmware-toolbox-cmd config remove containerinfo poll-interval

  3. Querying container information: For Linux guest, the number of containers queried per namespace can be limited to a value as follows:

    vmware-toolbox-cmd config set containerinfo max-containers <value>

    The default value for max-containers is 100. The containerinfo plugin will stop collecting information after it collects information from 100 containers.

  4. Communicate with docker daemon (docker-unix-socket): The docker unix socket is used to communicate with the docker daemon. Default is /var/run/docker.sock
    Note:
    • This key is specific to docker users.
    • The default value can be overridden using vmware-toolbox-cmd:

      vmware-toolbox-cmd config set docker-unix-socket <path of the socket>

  5. Communicate with containerd gRPC server (containerd-unix-socket): The containerd unix socket is used to communicate with the containerd gRPC server. Default is /run/containerd/containerd.sock
    • The default value can be overridden using vmware-toolbox-cmd:

      vmware-toolbox-cmd config set containerd-unix-socket <path of the socket>

  6. Disabling the containerinfo plugin:

    To disable the containerinfo gather loop set the poll-interval=0

    vmware-toolbox-cmd config set containerinfo poll-interval 0