Installation guide

C H A P T E R 2 Creating and Configuring Virtual Machines

Installing a Guest Operating System and

VMware Tools

This section describes the following:

• Installing a Guest Operating System in a Virtual Machine on page 45

• Installing VMware Tools in the Guest Operating System on page 46

• About the VMware Guest Operating System Service on page 51

In most cases, you configure your virtual machine with a blank (unformatted) SCSI

virtual disk. You can install an operating system on this virtual disk just as you would

on a new physical machine, using a standard installation CD-ROM and formatting the

virtual disk at the appropriate place in the installation process.

You may also install from image files — ISO image files of installation CD-ROMs and

floppy image files of any floppy disks needed for the installation. Use the VMware

Management Interface to connect the virtual machine’s drives to the appropriate

image files before you begin the installation.

Another approach is to start with a virtual disk created with VMware Workstation 3.2

or higher or with VMware GSX Server 2.5 or higher, then configure the guest

operating system to work with VMware ESX Server.

Once your guest operating system is installed, be sure to follow the directions below

for installing VMware Tools and the network driver.

Installing a Guest Operating System in a Virtual Machine

To install a guest operating system and other software, work on a separate

workstation and use the VMware Remote Console.

For details on installing the remote console, see Installing the Remote Console

Software on page 75. Follow the directions in that section for starting a remote

console on your Windows or Linux workstation and connecting to a virtual machine.

Insert the installation CD-ROM for your guest operating system in the server’s CD-

ROM drive. Click Power On on the remote console toolbar to begin setting up your

guest operating system. See www.vmware.com/support/guestnotes/doc/index.html

and the ESX Server 2.1 release notes for details on installing specific guest operating

systems.

If you prefer to install over a network, you need ISO image files of installation CD-

ROMs and floppy image files of any floppy disks needed for the installation. The

installation instructions in this section assume you are installing from physical media.