Installing VMware Tools in a Linux Virtual Machine (Steps for installing VMware Tools)

 

This section explains how to install VMware Tools in a Linux, FreeBSD, or Solaris virtual machine.
To install VMware Tools in a Linux, FreeBSD, or Solaris Virtual Machine
1.Power on the virtual machine.

2.After the guest operating system has started, prepare your virtual machine to install VMware Tools.

Choose VM> install VMware Tools.
The remaining steps take place inside the virtual machine.
Note: You can install VMware Tools either from a terminal in an X Window session or in text mode.

3.As root (Su-), mount the VMware Tools virtual CD-ROM image, change to a working directory (for example,/tmp), uncompress the installer, and unmount the CD-ROM image.
Note:You do not use an actual CD-ROM to install VMware Tools, and you do not need to download the CD-ROM image or burn a physical CD-ROM of this image file. the VMware Server software contains an ISO image that looks like a CD-ROM
To your guest operating system. This image contains all the files needed to install VMware Tools in your guest operating system.
Using the tar installer on Linux guests: Some Linux distributions use different device names or organize the/dev directory differently. if your CD-ROM drive is not/dev/CDROM or if the mount point for a CD-ROM is not/mnt/CDROM, modify the following commands
To reflect the conventions used by your distribution.
Also, some Linux distributions automatically mount CD-Roms. If your distribution uses automounting, do not use the mount and umount commands below. You still must untar the VMware Tools installer to/tmp.
Mount/dev/CDROM/mnt/CDROM
CD/tmp
Tar zxf, MNT, CDROM, vmware-linux-tools.tar.gz
Umount/mnt/CDROM
Go to step 4.
Using the RPM installer on Linux guests: Some Linux distributions use different device names or organize the/dev directory differently. if your CD-ROM drive is not/dev/CDROM or if the mount point for a CD-ROM is not/mnt/CDROM, modify the following commands
To reflect the conventions used by your distribution.
Also, some Linux distributions automatically mount CD-Roms. If your distribution uses automounting, do not use the mount and umount commands below.

Mount/dev/CDROM/mnt/CDROM
CP/mnt/CDROM/vmware-Linux-tools-<XXXXX>. i386.rpm
/Tmp rpm-UHV/tmp/vmware-Linux-tools-<XXXXX>. i386.rpm
Umount/mnt/CDROM
Where <XXXXX> is the build number of the VMware Server Release.
Go to Step 6.
Solaris guests: the Solaris Volume Manager-Vold-mounts the CD-ROM under/CDROM/vmwaretools. If the CD-ROM is not mounted, restart the Volume Manager using the following commands:
/Etc/init. d/volmgt stop
/Etc/init. d/volmgt start
The CD-ROM is mounted, use the following commands to extract VMware Tools.
CD/tmp
Gunzip-C/CDROM/vmwarw.ls/vmware-solaris-tools.tar.gz | tar xf-
Go to step 4.
FreeBSD guests: Some FreeBSD distributions automatically mount CD-ROMs. If your distribution uses automounting, do not use the mount and umount commands below. You still must untar the VMware Tools installer to/tmp.
Mount/CDROM
CD/tmp
Tar zxf/CDROM/vmware-freebsd-tools.tar.gz
Umount/CDROM

4.Run the VMware Tools installer.
CD vmware-tools-distrib
/Vmware-install.pl

5.Answer the questions about default directories.

6.Run the configuration program.
Vmware-config-tools.pl

7.To change your virtual machine's display resolution, answer yes, and enter the number that corresponds to the desired resolution.

8.Log off of the root account.
Exit

9.Start X and your graphical environment. If you Installed VMware Tools in an X Windows session, restart X Windows.

10.In an X terminal, launch the VMware Tools background application.
Vmware-Toolbox &
You can run VMware Tools as root or as a normal user. to shrink Virtual Disks or to change any VMware Tools scripts, you must run VMware Tools as root (Su -).
Note: Always run vmware-toolbox in the guest operating system to ensure you have access to all VMware Tools features, such as copy and paste and mouse ungrab for operating systems for which x display driver is not available.