VMware Workstation Pro 15] 15.Installing VMware Tools on CentOS 7.6 and Ubuntu Server 18.04

Hello, guys. You will figure out how to install VMware Tools on CentOS 7.6 and Ubuntu Server 18.04 Linux operating system in this post. When you finish this practice, you will be able to use the features provided by VMware Tools on your Linux virtual machines.

I strongly recommend that you install VMware Tools after installing Linux operating systems on a virtual machine. VMware Tools is the utilities which enhance the performance of the guest operating system.

VMware Tools Benefits and Features

This provides you with the following benefits:

- ThinPrint - Shared folders - Faster graphics performance - Improved mouse performance - Automatic grabbing and releasing of the mouse cursor - File drag and drop between your host os and a guest os - Text copy and paste between your host os and a guest os - And so on

In particular, the shared folders feature will greatly reduce your Linux testing time.

Installing VMware Tools on CentOS 7.6 and Ubuntu Server 18.04

When CentOS 7.x and Ubuntu Server 18.x are installed, the open-vm-tools packages are installed by default. To install VMware Tools provided by VMware Workstation Pro 15, you must delete it.

CentOS 7.6:

[root@centos76 ~]# rpm -qa | grep open-vm-tools open-vm-tools-desktop-10.2.5-3.el7.x86_64 open-vm-tools-10.2.5-3.el7.x86_64

Ubuntu Server 18.04:

user01@ubuntu1804:~$ sudo dpkg -l | grep open-vm-tools ii  open-vm-tools                         2:10.2.0-3ubuntu3                 amd64        Open VMware Tools for virtual machines hosted on VMware (CLI)

Installing VMware Tools on CentOS 7.6

First, log in your CentOS 7.6 virtual machine and remove the open-vm-tools by running the following commands:

[root@centos76 ~]# rpm -e open-vm-tools-desktop-10.2.5-3.el7.x86_64 [root@centos76 ~]# rpm -e open-vm-tools-10.2.5-3.el7.x86_64 [root@centos76 ~]# rpm -qa | grep open-vm-tools

And select VM > Install VMware Tools from the menu bar. The VMware Tools ISO is then automatically mounted on the CDROM of your CentOS 7.6 virtual machine. Now run the following commands to install VMware Tools.

After running the vmware-install.pl command, type yes when asked to proceed with the installation. And then press the enter key until the --the VMware team message is printed. run the shutdown command for rebooting your CentOS VM after installing VMware Tools.

[root@centos76 ~]# df -h /dev/sr0 Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sr0         55M   55M     0 100% /run/media/root/VMware Tools [root@centos76 ~]# mkdir /vmtools [root@centos76 ~]# cd /run/media/root/VMware\ Tools/ [root@centos76 VMware Tools]# ls manifest.txt     VMwareTools-10.3.2-9925305.tar.gz  vmware-tools-upgrader-64 run_upgrader.sh  vmware-tools-upgrader-32 [root@centos76 VMware Tools]# zcat VMwareTools-10.3.2-9925305.tar.gz | (cd /vmtools;tar -xf -) [root@centos76 VMware Tools]# cd /vmtools [root@centos76 vmtools]# ls vmware-tools-distrib [root@centos76 vmtools]# cd vmware-tools-distrib/ [root@centos76 vmware-tools-distrib]# ls bin  caf  doc  etc  FILES  INSTALL  installer  lib  vgauth  vmware-install.pl [root@centos76 vmware-tools-distrib]# ./vmware-install.pl open-vm-tools packages are available from the OS vendor and VMware recommends using open-vm-tools packages. See http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2073803 for more information. Do you still want to proceed with this installation? [no] yes INPUT: [yes] Creating a new VMware Tools installer database using the tar4 format. 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/rc.d] INPUT: [/etc/rc.d]  default What is the directory that contains the init scripts? [/etc/rc.d/init.d] INPUT: [/etc/rc.d/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 10.3.2 build-9925305 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. Stopping vmware-tools (via systemctl):  [  OK  ] The module vmci has already been installed on this system by another installer or package and will not be modified by this installer. The module vsock has already been installed on this system by another installer or package and will not be modified by this installer. The module vmxnet3 has already been installed on this system by another installer or package and will not be modified by this installer. The module pvscsi has already been installed on this system by another installer or package and will not be modified by this installer. The module vmmemctl has already been installed on this system by another installer or package and will not be modified by this installer. 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 VMware automatic kernel modules enables automatic building and installation of VMware kernel modules at boot that are not already present. This feature can be enabled/disabled by re-running vmware-config-tools.pl. Would you like to enable VMware automatic kernel modules? [yes] INPUT: [yes]  default Disabling timer-based audio scheduling in pulseaudio. 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 1.20.1 Distribution provided drivers for Xorg X server are used. Skipping X configuration because X drivers are not included. Creating a new initrd boot image for the kernel. Generating the key and certificate files. Successfully generated the key and certificate files. The configuration of VMware Tools 10.3.2 build-9925305 for Linux for this running kernel completed successfully. You must restart your X session before any mouse or graphics changes take effect. To enable advanced X features (e.g., guest resolution fit, drag and drop, and file and text copy/paste), you will need to do one (or more) of the following: 1. Manually start /usr/bin/vmware-user 2. Log out and log back into your desktop session 3. Restart your X session. Enjoy, --the VMware team Found VMware Tools CDROM mounted at /run/media/root/VMware Tools. Ejecting device /dev/sr0 ... [root@centos76 vmware-tools-distrib]# cd ~ [root@centos76 ~]# rm -rf /vmtools [root@centos76 ~]# shutdown -r now

You can now use the features provided by VMware Tools. :D



Installing VMware Tools on Ubuntu Server 18.04

To remove open-vm-tools from Ubuntu Server 18.04, run the following commands:

user01@ubuntu1804:~$ sudo apt remove open-vm-tools Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following packages will be REMOVED:   open-vm-tools ubuntu-server 0 to upgrade, 0 to newly install, 2 to remove and 186 not to upgrade. After this operation, 2,179 kB disk space will be freed. Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y (Reading database ... 66514 files and directories currently installed.) Removing ubuntu-server (1.417) ... Removing open-vm-tools (2:10.2.0-3ubuntu3) ... Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.27-3ubuntu1) ... Processing triggers for man-db (2.8.3-2) ... user01@ubuntu1804:~$ sudo apt purge open-vm-tools Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following packages will be REMOVED:   open-vm-tools* 0 to upgrade, 0 to newly install, 1 to remove and 186 not to upgrade. After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y (Reading database ... 66414 files and directories currently installed.) Purging configuration files for open-vm-tools (2:10.2.0-3ubuntu3) ... Processing triggers for ureadahead (0.100.0-20) ... Processing triggers for systemd (237-3ubuntu10) ...

Run the following commands to install Ubuntu Desktop and other packages.

user01@ubuntu1804:~$ sudo apt -y install --no-install-recommends ubuntu-desktop user01@ubuntu1804:~$ sudo apt -y install build-essential

Select VM > Install VMware Tools from the menu bar and mount /dev/sr0 to /mount as shown below.

user01@ubuntu1804:~$ sudo blkid /dev/sr0 /dev/sr0: UUID="2018-09-04-03-03-20-00" LABEL="VMware Tools" TYPE="iso9660" user01@ubuntu1804:~$ sudo mount -r -t iso9660 /dev/sr0 /mnt user01@ubuntu1804:~$ df -h /mnt Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sr0         55M   55M     0 100% /mnt

Now run the following commands to install VMware Tools. After running the vmware-install.pl command, type yes when asked to proceed with the installation. And then press the enter key until the --the VMware team message is printed. run the shutdown command for rebooting your Ubuntu Server VM after installing VMware Tools.

user01@ubuntu1804:~$ cd /mnt user01@ubuntu1804:/mnt$ ls manifest.txt  run_upgrader.sh  VMwareTools-10.3.2-9925305.tar.gz  vmware-tools-upgrader-32  vmware-tools-upgrader-64 user01@ubuntu1804:/mnt$ sudo mkdir /vmtools user01@ubuntu1804:/mnt$ zcat VMwareTools-10.3.2-9925305.tar.gz | (cd /vmtools;sudo tar -xf -) user01@ubuntu1804:/mnt$ cd /vmtools/vmware-tools-distrib/ user01@ubuntu1804:/vmtools/vmware-tools-distrib$ ls bin  caf  doc  etc  FILES  INSTALL  installer  lib  vgauth  vmware-install.pl user01@ubuntu1804:/vmtools/vmware-tools-distrib$ sudo ./vmware-install.pl open-vm-tools packages are available from the OS vendor and VMware recommends using open-vm-tools packages. See http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2073803 for more information. Do you still want to proceed with this installation? [no] yes ... ... ... To enable advanced X features (e.g., guest resolution fit, drag and drop, and file and text copy/paste), you will need to do one (or more) of the following: 1. Manually start /usr/bin/vmware-user 2. Log out and log back into your desktop session 3. Restart your X session. Enjoy, --the VMware team Found VMware Tools CDROM mounted at /mnt. Ejecting device /dev/sr0 ... user01@ubuntu1804:/vmtools/vmware-tools-distrib$ cd ~ user01@ubuntu1804:~$ sudo rm -rf /vmtools user01@ubuntu1804:~$ sudo shutdown -r now

The screen resolution will not automatically adjust. Select Dock > Settings > Devices > Resolution > 1440 x 900 for changing display resolution. Now you can use the features provided by VMware Tools.

You have acquired the skill to install VMware Tools on Linux operating systems. I encourage you to practice a few more times to become proficient. Save your valuable time by using VMware Tools features. See you next. Thank you.