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Installing VMware Tools (Linux)

VMware Tools is a suite of utilities that enhances the performance of the virtual machine’s guest operating system and improves management of the virtual machine. Installing VMware Tools in the guest operating system is vital. Although the guest operating system can run without VMware Tools, you lose important functionality and convenience.

The service is named vmware-guestd on Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris guests. This service performs various duties within the guest operating system:

• Passes messages from the host operating system to the guest operating system.
• Executes commands in the operating system to cleanly shut down or restart a Linux, FreeBSD, or Solaris system when you select power operations in Workstation.
• Synchronizes the time in the guest operating system with the time in the host operating system.
• Runs scripts that help automate guest operating system operations. The scripts run when the virtual machine’s power state changes.

The service starts when the guest operating system boots.

To install VMware tools on a linux server you would first right-click the server in your vSphere client, hover over the Guest option and click the Install/Upgrade VMware Tools option:

This link will mount a virtual CD-ROM that contains the VMware tools rpm. The proper procedure for installing the tools after mounting the virtual CD-ROM is to first mount the cdrom device using the command: mount /dev/cdrom /mnt , to verify the file exists and is mounted correctly we use the ls /mnt command on the mounted directory,you should see the file VMWareTools-4.0.0-208167.i386.rpm. Next, run the command rpm –ivh /mnt/VMWareTools-4.0.0-208167.i386.rpm

Next, (as the latter command indicated) you must run the following command to configure VMware Tools for the running kernel; /usr/bin/vmware-config-tools.pl, you will be asked to hit ENTER once midway during the configuration updates as shown below:

Next we again follow the on screen prompts and run the following command to complete the installation. A reboot of the VM is not necessary after installation of VMware tools however it is recommended.

If installed correctly you should see an “OK” display within your vSphere Client interface: