VMware Tools™ installation¶
VMware Tools™ is a suite of utilities that enhances the performance and management of virtual machines (VMs) running on VMware virtualization platforms such as VMware vSphere, VMware Workstation, and VMware Fusion. VMware Tools™ improve the interaction between the guest operating system and the host environment.
Prerequisites and assumptions¶
- a desire to manage VMware instances with VMware Tools™
- the ability to escalate privileges with
sudo - it is assumed that you are starting with a Rocky Linux minimal installation
Installation of needed packages¶
Install X11 VMware driver:
sudo dnf install xorg-x11-drv-vmware
Install kernel-devel and kernel-headers:
sudo dnf install kernel-devel kernel-headers
Install perl if not already installed:
sudo dnf install perl
Reboot your system:
sudo shutdown -r now
Mounting VMware Tools™¶
Mount VMware Tools™ in the graphical interface¶
Right-click VM in the virtual machine menu, then click Guest > Install/Upgrade VMware Tools™.
VM Tab => Select Install VMware Tools
Mounting VMware Tools CDROM complete.
Mounting VMware Tools™ from the command-line¶
Create a mount point for VMware Tools™ and mount it:
sudo mkdir /mnt/cdrom
sudo mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
mount: /mnt/cdrom: WARNING: source write-protected, mounted read-only.
Check if /dev/cdrom mounted or not:
sudo df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
devtmpfs 4.0M 0 4.0M 0% /dev
tmpfs 1.8G 0 1.8G 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 724M 9.3M 715M 2% /run
/dev/mapper/rl-root 37G 3.5G 34G 10% /
/dev/nvme0n1p1 960M 342M 619M 36% /boot
/dev/mapper/rl-home 19G 163M 18G 1% /home
tmpfs 362M 84K 362M 1% /run/user/1001
/dev/sr0 56M 56M 0 100% /mnt/CDROM
[root@localhost ecamalan]# cd /mnt/cdrom/
[root@localhost cdrom]# ls
manifest.txt run_upgrader.sh VMwareTools-10.3.23-16594550.tar.gz vmware-tools-upgrader-32 vmware-tools-upgrader-64
Installing VMware Tools™¶
Copy the VMware Tools™ gzip file to local /tmp directory with this command:
cp /mnt/cdrom/VMwareTools-10.3.23-16594550.tar.gz /tmp/
Extract tar.gz file into a new directory called /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib:
[root@localhost cdrom]# cd /tmp/
[root@localhost tmp]# tar -zxvf VMwareTools-10.3.23-16594550.tar.gz vmware-tools-distrib/
vmware-tools-distrib/
vmware-tools-distrib/bin/
vmware-tools-distrib/bin/vm-support
vmware-tools-distrib/bin/vmware-config-tools.pl
vmware-tools-distrib/bin/vmware-uninstall-tools.pl
vmware-tools-distrib/vgauth/
vmware-tools-distrib/vgauth/schemas/
vmware-tools-distrib/vgauth/schemas/xmldsig-core-schema.xsd
vmware-tools-distrib/vgauth/schemas/XMLSchema.xsd
vmware-tools-distrib/vgauth/schemas/saml-schema-assertion-2.0.xsd
vmware-tools-distrib/vgauth/schemas/catalog.xml
vmware-tools-distrib/vgauth/schemas/XMLSchema.dtd
vmware-tools-distrib/vgauth/schemas/xml.xsd
vmware-tools-distrib/vgauth/schemas/xenc-schema.xsd
vmware-tools-distrib/vgauth/schemas/datatypes.dtd
vmware-tools-distrib/vgauth/schemas/XMLSchema-instance.xsd
vmware-tools-distrib/vgauth/schemas/XMLSchema-hasFacetAndProperty.xsd
vmware-tools-distrib/caf/
... (some packages not shown)
vmware-tools-distrib/lib/plugins64/common/
vmware-tools-distrib/lib/plugins64/common/libvix.so
vmware-tools-distrib/lib/plugins64/common/libhgfsServer.so
vmware-tools-distrib/doc/
vmware-tools-distrib/doc/INSTALL
vmware-tools-distrib/doc/open_source_licenses.txt
vmware-tools-distrib/doc/README
vmware-tools-distrib/vmware-install.pl
Warning
Before you start, you need to check whether the /etc/init.d directory exists or not.
If not you may see the following error:
What is the directory that contains the init directories (rc0.d/ to rc6.d/)?
Solution:
sudo su
[root@localhost etc]# clear
[root@localhost etc]# cd /etc/
[root@localhost etc]# mkdir init.d
[root@localhost etc]# cd init.d
[root@localhost etc]# for i in {0,1,2,3,4,5,6}
> do
> mkdir rc$i.d
> done
[root@localhost etc]# cd /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib/
[root@localhost vmware-tools-distrib]# ./vmware-install.pl
Warning
Be careful changing the default init script directory which should be /etc/init.d/.
What is the directory that contains the init directories (rc0.d/ to rc6.d/)? [/etc] /etc/init.d
INPUT: [/etc/init.d]
The path "/etc/init.d" is a directory which does not contain a rc0.d directory.
What is the directory that contains the init directories (rc0.d/ to rc6.d/)? [/etc] /etc/init.d/
INPUT: [/etc/init.d/]
What is the directory that contains the init scripts? [/etc/init.d]
INPUT: [/etc/init.d] default
To run the PERL script, change to the vmware-tools-distrib directory and run vmware-install.pl:
sudo cd /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib/
sudo ./vmware-install.pl
A previous installation of VMware Tools has been detected.
The previous installation was made by the tar installer (version 4).
Keeping the tar4 installer database format.
You have a version of VMware Tools installed. Continuing this install will
first uninstall the currently installed version. Do you wish to continue?
(yes/no) [yes]
INPUT: [yes] default
Uninstalling the tar installation of VMware Tools™.
Can't exec "/etc/vmware-caf/pme/install/preupgrade.sh": No such file or directory at /usr/bin/vmware-uninstall-tools.pl line 4421.
The removal of VMware Tools 10.3.23 build-16594550 for Linux completed
successfully.
Installing VMware Tools™.
In which directory do you want to install the binary files?
[/usr/bin]
INPUT: [/usr/bin] default
What is the directory that contains the init directories (rc0.d/ to rc6.d/)?
[/etc]
INPUT: [/etc] default
What is the directory that contains the init scripts?
[/etc/init.d]
INPUT: [/etc/init.d] default
In which directory do you want to install the daemon files?
[/usr/sbin]
INPUT: [/usr/sbin] default
In which directory do you want to install the library files?
[/usr/lib/vmware-tools]
INPUT: [/usr/lib/vmware-tools] default
The path "/usr/lib/vmware-tools" does not exist currently. This program is
going to create it, including needed parent directories. Is this what you want?
[yes]
INPUT: [yes] default
In which directory do you want to install the common agent library files?
[/usr/lib]
INPUT: [/usr/lib] default
In which directory do you want to install the common agent transient files?
[/var/lib]
INPUT: [/var/lib] default
In which directory do you want to install the documentation files?
[/usr/share/doc/vmware-tools]
INPUT: [/usr/share/doc/vmware-tools] default
The path "/usr/share/doc/vmware-tools" does not exist currently. This program
is going to create it, including needed parent directories. Is this what you
want? [yes]
INPUT: [yes] default
The installation of VMware Tools 10.3.23 build-16594550 for Linux completed
successfully. You can decide to remove this software from your system at any
time by invoking the following command: "/usr/bin/vmware-uninstall-tools.pl".
Before running VMware Tools for the first time, you need to configure it by
invoking the following command: "/usr/bin/vmware-config-tools.pl". Do you want
this program to invoke the command for you now? [yes]
INPUT: [yes] default
Initializing...
Making sure services for VMware Tools are stopped.
Failed to stop vmware-tools.service: Unit vmware-tools.service not loaded.
Stopping VMware Tools services in the virtual machine:
Guest operating system daemon: done
VMware User Agent (vmware-user): done
Unmounting HGFS shares: done
Guest filesystem driver: done
sh: line 1: : command not found
The installation status of vmsync could not be determined.
Skippinginstallation.
The installation status of vmci could not be determined. Skippinginstallation.
The installation status of vsock could not be determined. Skippinginstallation.
The installation status of vmxnet3 could not be determined.
Skippinginstallation.
The installation status of pvscsi could not be determined.
Skippinginstallation.
The installation status of vmmemctl could not be determined.
Skippinginstallation.
The VMware Host-Guest Filesystem allows for shared folders between the host OS
and the guest OS in a Fusion or Workstation virtual environment. Do you wish
to enable this feature? [yes]
INPUT: [yes] default
The vmxnet driver is no longer supported on kernels 3.3 and greater. Please
upgrade to a newer virtual NIC. (e.g., vmxnet3 or e1000e)
The vmblock enables dragging or copying files between host and guest in a
Fusion or Workstation virtual environment. Do you wish to enable this feature?
[yes]
INPUT: [yes] default
Skipping configuring automatic kernel modules as no drivers were installed by
this installer.
Do you want to enable Guest Authentication (vgauth)? Enabling vgauth is needed
if you want to enable Common Agent (caf). [yes]
INPUT: [yes] default
Do you want to enable Common Agent (caf)? [no]
INPUT: [no] default
Detected X server version 1.20.11
Distribution provided drivers for Xorg X server are used.
Skipping X configuration because X drivers are not included.
Skipping rebuilding initrd boot image for kernel as no drivers to be included
in boot image were installed by this installer.
Generating the key and certificate files.
Successfully generated the key and certificate files.
Failed to start vmware-tools.service: Unit vmware-tools.service not found.
Unable to start services for VMware Tools
Execution aborted.
Warning no default label for /tmp/vmware-block-restore-5339.0/tmp_file
Enjoy,
--the VMware team
If you are running GUI, you need to restart your system:
sudo shutdown -r now
Check VMware installation¶
sudo /etc/init.d/vmware-tools start
Checking acpi hot plug done
Starting VMware Tools services in the virtual machine:
Switching to guest configuration: done
Guest filesystem driver: done
Mounting HGFS shares: done
Blocking file system: done
Guest operating system daemon: done
VGAuthService:
sudo /etc/init.d/vmware-tools status
vmtoolsd is running
Conclusion¶
We started with a minimal installation of Rocky Linux, which led to many deficiencies and encountered errors along the way. Despite this, we managed to install and run VMware Tools™, albeit with some challenges.
Author: Emre Camalan
Contributors: Steven Spencer, Ganna Zhyrnova