Download And Install Vmware Tools Linux
Aureliana Amys
It is easier and better to install open-vm-tools from the Ubuntu repositories. Just open a virtual console to your VM and sudo apt update && sudo apt -y install open-vm-tools to use the operating system managed vmtools instead.
I have been reading the VMWare Tools Installation Guide for OSSP documentation (specifically table 2-7) and the core package looks like it does what I need, but I am not sure which to choose.
Linux isn't windows. Libraries are required because those tools and programs were intended to use libraries that were not installed with the OS. The instructions are VERY specific, they give you a step by step to install, if those core packages are required you can't simply guess or assume they are not required.
I've installed Arch Linux as a guest, and have followed the guide pretty well. I however came across a problem where I'm not able to start Unity even though I've successfully installed open-vm-tools and modules. It tells me that vmware tools isn't installed and that it can't change the resolution. (I'm using workstation 8)
open-vm-tools is started, and I can use shared folders perfectly.
So I though, alright, I'll try using the integrated vmware tools provided by VMware, and attempted to install through the 'CD'.
I then came across a problem where the installation required me to give the directory that contains init directories (rc0.d-rc6.d)- though Arch does not have these.
I'm having the same problem. open-vm-tools starts up, vmtoolsd is running, the modules vmwgfx, vmblock, vmhgfs, vmw_balloon and vmci are loaded, shared folders work, X with xf86-video-vmware starts successfully, even 3D acceleration with svga-dri works, gtkmm is installed. But I can't get the shared clipboard, resolution change or Unity (which depends on the former) features to work. It's definitely not enabled and working by default as the Wiki says.
The only error I was able to find on the guest is the following from vmsvc:
Meanwhile, I was able to get resolution changing working.
I have to start a second vmtoolds instance with vmtoolsd --name=vmusr. Yes, even if the rc.d script already started an vmtoolsd instance.
Why doesn't the initscript start this? Are there other possible --name=x values? Where can I find any documentation about open-vm-tools? The package only installs the documentation for some API in /usr/share/docs, nothing about normal usage.
The "The guest operating system's resolution cannot be changed." error is gone now, however the "The guest operating does not have VMware Tools installed." message remains, so Unity mode is still not working.
Drag&Drop and clipboard sharing isn't working either.
I'm not sure what the "regular way" is? But if you install for our OVA, you should already have open-vm-tools installed. We install it from the Debian repos (i.e. via apt). The current default version in/for v16.x is v10.3.10. So if you installed from an ISO and are ok with that version, then you can install like this:
So I did apt install, and it says its installed. Wonder why vSphere isn't seeing it. When I try to upgrade or install it I get a message saying "The Operation is not supported on this object". And I can't load it via the right click on VM option either. Strange.
Looking at the package contents I can see a open-vm-tools.service file (/lib/systemd/system/open-vm-tools.service). So it appears to have an associated service. Perhaps double check that that's running?:
I'm not at all familiar with vSphere, but looking closer at your screenshot, it appears to be more of a warning rather than an actual error? (Although I can see the error message down the bottom that you are referring to).
Are you actually experiencing any problem when working with the VM? From your screenshot, it's not clear to me that it's not seeing VM tools and/or there is a problem with vm-tools?! It just appears that the guest version of vm-tools doesn't match the host version (probably older in our VM). In the table, it says that it's "Guest managed" (which would make sense as it's installed inside the VM via apt rather than installed by the host). It sounds like you tried to "update" it and it failed (as per the error message; which again would make sense - as it's "guest managed").
If it doesn't actually cause any real issues when working with the VM (or you are willing and able to adjust your workflow to workaround vm-tool issues), then you could just ignore the version warning you see in your screenshot.
If you are actually experiencing functional issues with open-vm-tools from our appliance within VMware, then the newer open-vm-tools version (in buster-backports) might resolve them? It likely won't remove the vSphere version warning (depending on how specific the version comparison test is and how closely it matches the host version). I would expect that while vm-tools is "guest managed" in your TurnKey VM, updating from the host will continue to fail.
If you want to manage it all via the host, then I imagine it's possible to install from the host (will almost certainly require removal of the ones we ship). I have no idea how that is done, but I assume that you have some idea (or can find out). Remove the version we ship with like this:
I'm not experiencing any functional issues, but I'm looking at upgrading the VMware installation and VMs via vSphere to keep up with latest releaes. So trying to use their Updates functionality, which I've never used before. Probably something with Vmware 6.7 I haven't figured out yet.
Hi,
Just trying to understand if vmtools installation is a requirement to be able to build a VMs on ESXi. I can understand it when DHCP IP address is in use then to be able to connect back VM IP should be somehow exctracted but what about static IPs? Even when I build a Linux VM with static IP and ssh_host defined packer doesnt use it. This is different from Hyper-V when ssh_host with static IP is working without I install hyperv-daemons.
In my case I had to install vmtools, since I have not found any other solution. If you dont want to use vmtools another workaround might be is just to use Vmware Workstation to build the image, you can configure Vmware HW version for compatability and at the end export image to OVF. In Vmware Workstation I was able to build images with static IP and ssh_host.
Hope it helps.
Thank you for your response. In your case, how do you run the vmtools installation?
I have tried several ways to run the vmtools installation on Debian 10 and CentOS 8 and I have not been able to get it to work.
for centos7 I used ks.cfg file with dhcp or static IP and then part of the %post I used yum -y open-vm-tools to install vmtools package and systemctl to enable it, then after packer reboots the VM it can extract IP and use it to connect by ssh.
Otherwise I'm not sure how it's done, but there are a number of threads that discuss VMware tools. Have a look here. From a quick glance though they all seem to apply to previous versions of TKL so may not be of much use to you.
I suggest that you google something like "install vmware tools debian 6" then you should find something useful (TKL v12.x is based on Debian 6.0 aka Squeeze). Be great if you could document your steps and post back the commands that work (or not) for you as others may be in your situation and it will give them a head start. Also I may be able to help you out if you get stuck...
As for apt-get update && apt-get upgrade - that is entirely up to you and depends on your experience and your usage scenario. If everything is working ok, then there is no reason to fix something that is not broken. TKL automatically installs security updates so unless something isn't working, then there's not really any real advantage. 'apt-get update' won't ever cause you any issues and is in fact recommended before you install anything (it refreshes the local list of available packages - you could run it before your above code) but the 'apt-get upgrade' is optional - and may occasionally cause you problems - although generally it should be fine...
on esxi 5.5 vmware tools are provided in .tar.gz package,
mount tools cdrom , extract the tarball (tar xf vmtools.tar.gz) then run vmware-install.pl script (IMPORTANT you will need gcc & kernel-sources before installing tools)
I guess VMware needs to fix their repository then. An alternative you
have is to download the RPMs from there manually and put them in a
directory in your network, then set that up as its own repository.
Another alternative is to just install the tools from there manually as
required by their documentation.
Normally the fix would be easy - just log into the console of the Linux appliancel, and update the VMware tools.
But as there is no way for me to access the real CLI/Shell of the VM, i cannot update/reinstall it myself...
Hey all, been a MS junkie my whole life and decided to escape ?
(but I need to do this in baby steps so that I can keep on working...)
I run VMWare on my machine and just installed Solus Budgie 4.1. Went to install the VMWare Tools (the ones that launch from VMWare itself), but no joy. I kept getting an error about the init directories, not being able to locate the directory rc0.d/.
I actually searched the drive and couldn't find any of these rcxx.d directories.