The failure is caused by removal of the Linux socket statistics utility, ss , and visibility is restored by reinstalling or restoring that utility. VCF Operations Service Discovery relies on in-guest commands to identify running services and network relationships. For UNIX/Linux operating systems, the documented Service Discovery command and utility requirements are ps , ss , and top . If a hardened Linux image removes ss under least-functionality controls, VMware Tools and the Service Discovery plug-in can still be present, but the collector cannot perform the required service enumeration. This explains why legacy Linux systems still work while newly hardened systems do not. The correction is to restore the ss utility and ensure the discovery user can execute it. The documentation also shows that for non-root Linux users, sudoers may need NOPASSWD entries that include the ss path so collection scripts do not block on password prompts . tcpdump is not listed as a Service Discovery prerequisite, and netstat is a Windows Service Discovery utility in this context, not the required Linux dependency. Reference topic: Objective 4.7 – Service Discovery / Linux prerequisites / Supported commands and utilities .