Deep Intro to VMware ESX, Part 6: VMware Tools

If you ever have worked on a Virtual machine without VMware tools inside, you will know exactly why we should add them. Not only because the tools add the updated drivers to the image, but also because of the mouse movements.

In this article 6 I show you several ways to install VMware tools inside your virtual machines.

Usually you can install the Vmware tools from within Virtualcenter by selecting the guest and then select install or upgrade VMtools. This is an easy solution, but you have to do it on every host separately. Make sure you have added a cdrom player to the host, or else it will not work. The VMware tools are installed from an automatic mapped iso file that will use the cdrom drive of the client. If you have no cd drive configured on the host, then shutdown the host and select add new hardware and then add an ide cdrom drive.

On non-microsoft operating systems it will be more difficult. There you need to add a cdrom drive and then map the appropriate iso yourself.

Install VMware tools to GNU/Linux versions!

Many later Linux distributions have built-in support for VMware's virtual display adapter and have drivers for it. If you have an older distribution, or a custom one, then when you are installing X gui to the Linux VM, select "Unsupported VGA compatible" as the display adapter.

If you are installing VM to be used as a server, try to do it without using X Gui.

First you have to open "xterm" or similar CLI. (Cominterpretermand Line interpreter) You also could press [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[F2] to switch to TTY2. Login as root there, if not already logged-in. Then follow the instructions.

After selecting in the Remote Console "Settings", and then "VMware Tools Install". Enter the following commands:

cd /tmp
mount /dev/cdrom
cp /media/cdrom/* /tmp ### See the note below!
umount /dev/cdrom
tar -xzf vmware-linux-tools.tar.gz
cd vmware-tools-distrib
./vmware-install.pl

A note on the cp command above:

On Gentoo CD/DVD is mounted to /mnt/cdrom. On SUSE it is mounted to /media/cdrom, and/or /media/dvd. On RedHat-family of Linuces CD/DVD is mounted to /mnt/cdrom. On Debian and derivatives, it is mounted to /cdrom. So change the cp command above accordingly.

Now during the script execution just accept the defaults, most of the time by pressing [Enter]. It is when you are asked about display resolution for X, when you have to stop for a while and think. Select proper resolution, and you are done with the VMware Tools install.

Install VMware tools to Novell Netware

While logged on as admin on the console, do the following to install VMware tools:

• On the Remote Console menu, select "VMware Tools Install...".
• On the console enter the following command: vmtools:\setup
• Wait for a few seconds, and you can see the tools have been installed.

Install VMware tools to Microsoft Windows

While you are logged-on as an administrator, do the following to install VMware tools:

• On the Remote Console menu, select "VMware Tools Install...".
• VMware Tools installation begins automatically, if your VM has autorun enabled. If it doesn't have, you will have to start the installation manually from the VMs just-mounted-CD.
• Wait for a few seconds, press "Next", and/or "Yes" several times, and you can see the tools have been installed.
• The default full installation also installs VMXnet network adapter driver.

With Vmware tools installed you will have much more fun of your VM's. In workstation for instance VMtools enables a cool feature called drag and drop.

You can then drag and drop files to the virtual machine or back to the host.

For this series of articles I used the following information: http://trivore.com/vmware/esx21.html

The information contained the link is written for ESX 2 where I changed it for VMware ESX 3 and 3.5