September 2012

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 If the distribution does not automatically mount CD-ROMs, mount the VMware Tools virtual CD-ROM
image.
For example, type mount /cdrom.
4 Change to a working directory (for example, /tmp).
cd /tmp
5 Untar the VMware Tools tar file.
tar zxpf /cdrom/vmware-freebsd-tools.tar.gz
6 If the distribution does not use automounting, unmount the VMware Tools virtual CD-ROM image.
umount /cdrom
7 Run the installer and configure VMware Tools.
cd vmware-tools-distrib
./vmware-install.pl
Usually, the vmware-config-tools.pl configuration file runs after the installer file finishes running.
8 Respond to the prompts by pressing Enter to accept the default values, if appropriate for your
configuration.
9 Follow the instructions at the end of the script.
Depending on the features you use, these instructions can include restarting the X session, restarting
networking, logging in again, and starting the VMware User process. You can alternatively reboot the
guest operating system to accomplish all these tasks.
If you are using vCenter Server, the VMware Tools label on the Summary tab changes to OK.
Installing and Configuring VMware Tools
24 VMware, Inc.