Manually Installing
VMware Tools on a Linux Virtual Machine
For Linux virtual
machines, you manually install VMware Tools from the command line. For later
Linux distributions, use the integrated open-vm-tools version.
For more information
on OS compatibility for open-vm-tools, see the
VMware Compatibility
Guide
at
https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php.
- Power on the virtual machine.
- Verify that the guest operating system is running.
- Because the VMware Tools installer is written in Perl, verify that Perl is installed in the guest operating system.
- For vSphere virtual machines, determine whether you have the latest version of VMware Tools. In the vSphere Client inventory, select the virtual machine and click theSummarytab.
- Select the menu command to mount the VMware Tools virtual disk on the guest operating system.VMware ProductActionvSphere Client (HTML5)Right-click the virtual machine and selectvSphere ClientvSphere Web ClientRight-click the virtual machine and selectFusionWorkstation ProWorkstation Player
- In the virtual machine, open a terminal window.
- Run themountcommand with no arguments to determine whether your Linux distribution automatically mounted the VMware Tools virtual CD-ROM image.If the CD-ROM device is mounted, the CD-ROM device and its mount point are listed in a manner similar to the following output:/dev/cdrom on /mnt/cdrom type iso9660 (ro,nosuid,nodev)
- If the VMware Tools virtual CD-ROM image is not mounted, mount the CD-ROM drive.
- If a mount point directory does not already exist, create it.
Some Linux distributions use different mount point names. For example, on some distributions the mount point ismkdir /mnt/cdrom/media/VMware Toolsrather than/mnt/cdrom. Modify the command to reflect the conventions that your distribution uses. - Mount the CD-ROM drive.mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdromSome Linux distributions use different device names or organize the/devdirectory differently. If your CD-ROM drive is not/dev/cdromor if the mount point for a CD-ROM is not/mnt/cdrom, modify the command to reflect the conventions that your distribution uses.
- Change to a working directory, for example,/tmp.cd /tmp
- (Optional) Delete any previousvmware-tools-distribdirectory before you install VMware Tools.The location of this directory depends on where you placed it during the previous installation. Often this directory is placed in/tmp/vmware-tools-distrib.
- List the contents of the mount point directory and note the file name of the VMware Tools tar installer.lsmount-point
- Uncompress the installer.tar zxpf /mnt/cdrom/VMwareTools-x.x.x-yyyy.tar.gzThe valuex.x.xis the product version number, andyyyyis the build number of the product release.
- If necessary, unmount the CD-ROM image.umount /dev/cdromIf your Linux distribution automatically mounted the CD-ROM, you do not need to unmount the image.
- Run the installer and configure VMware Tools as a root usercd vmware-tools-distrib sudo ./vmware-install.plUsually, thevmware-config-tools.plconfiguration file runs after the installer file finishes running. If you attempt to install a tar installation over an RPM installation, or the reverse, the installer detects the previous installation and must convert the installer database format before continuing.For newer Linux distributions, users are prompted to choose the integrated open-vm-tools.
- Follow the prompts to accept the default values, if appropriate for your configuration.
- Follow the instructions at the end of the script.Depending on the features you use, these instructions can include restarting the X session, restarting networking, logging in again, and starting the VMware User process. You can alternatively reboot the guest operating system to accomplish all these tasks.
If you are using vCenter Server, the
VMware Tools
label on the Summary
tab changes to OK
. If you upgraded VMware Tools as part of a vSphere upgrade, next determine whether to upgrade the virtual machines in your environment. To review and compare the hardware available for different compatibility levels, see the
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration
documentation.