How to install VMWare Tools on Red Hat and CentOS

If you need to install VMWare Tools on virtual machines running Red Hat or CentOS as operating system, you can follow the procedure described next:

Procedure

First of in VMWare vSphere locate the virtual machine you want to install the VMWare Tools and click on “Install VMWare Tools” as shown in the next image:

You will see a dialog window indicating that the VMWare Tools will be mounted by clicking on the “mount” button. Then in the virtual machine where you want to install the VMWare Tools you must do the following in the terminal:

# mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/
mount: block device /dev/sr0 is write-protected, mounting read-only

# cp /mnt/VMwareTools-9.0.0-782409.tar.gz /opt/

# cd /opt/
# tar xvzf VMwareTools-9.0.0-782409.tar.gz

# cd vmware-tools-distrib/

#./vmware-install.pl

The latter is a script which will ask you questions related to the VMWare Tools intallation. In genersl terms the default option are okay, but if you want to modify any parameter you can change any value according to your needs:

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]

What is the directory that contains the init directories (rc0.d/ to rc6.d/)?
[/etc/rc.d]

What is the directory that contains the init scripts?
[/etc/rc.d/init.d]

In which directory do you want to install the daemon files?
[/usr/sbin]

In which directory do you want to install the library files?
[/usr/lib/vmware-tools]

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]

In which directory do you want to install the documentation files?
[/usr/share/doc/vmware-tools]

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]

The installation of VMware Tools 9.0.0 build-782409 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]
Initializing...

Making sure services for VMware Tools are stopped.

The VMware FileSystem Sync Driver (vmsync) allows external third-party backup
software that is integrated with vSphere to create backups of the virtual
machine. Do you wish to enable this feature? [no]

Found a compatible pre-built module for vmci. Installing it...

Found a compatible pre-built module for vsock. Installing it...

The module vmxnet3 has already been installed on this system by another
installer or package and will not be modified by this installer. Use the flag
--clobber-kernel-modules=vmxnet3 to override.

The module pvscsi has already been installed on this system by another
installer or package and will not be modified by this installer. Use the flag
--clobber-kernel-modules=pvscsi to override.

The module vmmemctl has already been installed on this system by another
installer or package and will not be modified by this installer. Use the flag
--clobber-kernel-modules=vmmemctl to override.

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? [no]

Found a compatible pre-built module for vmxnet. Installing it...

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?
[no]

!!! [EXPERIMENTAL] !!!
VMware automatic kernel modules enables automatic building and installation of
VMware kernel modules at boot that are not already present. By selecting yes,
you will be enabling this experimental feature. You can always disable this
feature by re-running vmware-config-tools.pl.

Would you like to enable VMware automatic kernel modules?
[no]

No X install found.

Creating a new initrd boot image for the kernel.
vmware-tools start/running
The configuration of VMware Tools 9.0.0 build-782409 for Linux for this running
kernel completed successfully.

You must restart your X session before any mouse or graphics changes take
effect.

You can now run VMware Tools by invoking "/usr/bin/vmware-toolbox-cmd" from the
command line.

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; and,
3. Restart your X session.

Enjoy,

--the VMware team

Found VMware Tools CDROM mounted at /mnt. Ejecting device /dev/sr0 ...
No eject (or equivilant) command could be located.
Eject Failed: If possible manually eject the Tools installer from the guest
cdrom mounted at /mnt before canceling tools install on the host.

When the script had finished the VMWare Tools will be installed on the virtual machine. Now you can umount the ISO by doing:

# umount /mnt

Then in VSphere you can check that VMWare Tools are running as shown in the first picture of this article.