How to upgrade VMware tools on Linux

If you are looking for how to INSTALL VMware Tools, please see my other blog post: How to install VMware Tools on Linux


How to upgrade VMware tools on Linux: Steps

1. Open the console of your Linux virtual machine

2. Log in as root

3. Go to the VM Menu, Guest, Install/Upgrade VMware Tools

4. Make a cdrom mount directory (if there isn't one already)

mkdir /mnt/cdrom

5. Mount the cdrom/iso

mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom

6.  Change directory to the mounted cdrom path

cd /mnt/cdrom

7. List the directory contents, you are looking for VMwareTools-version#-build#.tar.gz.  Take note of the build number.

ls

7. Clear out the old files from the root directory, if you used my previous instructions you will need to do this:

rm -rf ~/vmware-tools-distrib
rm -rf ~/VMwareTools*.tar.gz

8. Copy the new VMware Tools file to the root home directory

cp VMwareTools*.tar.gz ~

9. Change directory to the root home directory

cd

10. Expand the VMware Tools archive

tar -zxf VMwareTools*.tar.gz

11. List the contents of the root directory, look for the vmware-tools-distrib directory- change to that directory

cd vmware-tools-distrib

12. List the contents of that directory, look for the vmware install perl script and run it

./vmware-install.pl

13. Follow the installation/upgrade script - usually the defaults work fine.

14. Once the installation finishes, it will ask you if you want to run the configuration script, say yes.  Again, the defaults usually work for most everyone, most of the time.

14. Once the install has finished, unmount the ISO

umount /dev/cdrom

15. Go to the VM menu, Guest, if "End Vmware Tools Install" is an option, select that.  Otherwise, you are done!

Reconfigure VMware Tools

As a side note, if you every want to reconfigure VMware tools (for example, if you upgrade your Linux OS to a new kernel rev) you can always do the following:

1. Log in as root

2. Run the config script manually

vmware-config-tools.pl