September 2012

Manually Install or Upgrade VMware Tools in a Linux Virtual Machine
For Linux virtual machines, you manually install or upgrade VMware Tools by using the command line.
Install the latest version of VMware Tools to enhance the performance of the virtual machine's guest operating
system and improve virtual machine management. When you power on a virtual machine, if a new version of
VMware Tools is available, you see a notification in the status bar of the guest operating system.
NOTE This procedure describes how to use the VMware Tools tar installer to install or upgrade VMware Tools.
For virtual machines in a vSphere environment, you can alternatively use VMware Tools operating system
specific packages (OSPs) to install and upgrade VMware Tools. With OSPs you can use the native update
mechanisms of your operating system to download, install, and manage VMware Tools. For more information,
see “Operating System Specific Packages for Linux Guest Operating Systems,” on page 22.
Prerequisites
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Power on the virtual machine.
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Verify that the guest operating system is running.
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Because the VMware Tools installer is written in Perl, verify that Perl is installed in the guest operating
system.
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For vSphere virtual machines, to determine whether you have the latest version of VMware Tools, in the
vSphere Client inventory, select the virtual machine and click the Summary tab.
Procedure
1 Select the menu command to mount the VMware Tools virtual disc on the guest operating system.
VMware Product Menu Command
vSphere Client
Inventory > Virtual Machine > Guest > Install/Upgrade VMware Tools
vSphere Web Client
Right-click the virtual machine and select All vCenter Actions > Guest OS
> Install/Upgrade VMware Tools.
a To locate a virtual machine, select a datacenter, folder, cluster, resource
pool, host, or vApp.
b Click the Related Objects tab and click Virtual Machines.
Fusion
Virtual Machine > Install (or Upgrade) VMware Tools
Workstation
VM > Install (or Upgrade) VMware Tools
Player
Player > Manage > Install (or Upgrade) VMware Tools
2 In the virtual machine, log in to the guest operating system as root and open a terminal window.
3 Run the mount command with no arguments to determine whether your Linux distribution automatically
mounted the VMware Tools virtual CD-ROM image.
If the CD-ROM device is mounted, the CD-ROM device and its mount point are listed as something like
this:
/dev/cdrom on /mnt/cdrom type iso9660 (ro,nosuid,nodev)
Installing and Configuring VMware Tools
20 VMware, Inc.