Monday, October 6, 2014

How to install VMware tools on Linux

It has come to my attention that many people don't know how to install VMware tools on Linux, so they don't bother.  Linux isn't hard people!  I've decided to make it easy for you, so you no longer have any excuses.

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

How to install 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 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

ls

7. Copy the VMware Tools file to the root home directory

cp VMwareTools*.tar.gz ~

8. Change directory to the root home directory

cd

9. Expand the VMware Tools archive

tar -zxf VMwareTools*.tar.gz

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

cd vmware-tools-distrib

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

./vmware-install.pl

12. Follow the installation script - usually the defaults work fine.  If you get errors, you may need to install perl or gcc to be able to correctly install VMware tools.  Follow the correct instructions for your OS to install this.

13. 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



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