Installing VMware Tools on CentOS Server

Now that we have installed CentOS operating system to host our Asterisk PBX on the VMware machine, we will install the VMware tools to enhance video graphics and the use of the mouse in the guest OS.

Installing the VMware Tools

From your CentOS desktop go to Terminal and type the following commands:

step 1. Install packages to build the kernel modules

“yum install gcc kernel-devel”

click on OK when it asks you if the total download size is OK

step 2. Check the running kernel matches the kernel headers

“uname -r   # running kernel”

“rpm -q kernel-devel # installed kernel headers”

Make sure the two kernel are the same:

if the two versions are not the same, type the following command:

“yum -y upgrade kernel kernel-develreboot”

step 3. now from your VMware administrator console select your CentOS virtual machine, and click on the Install VMware tools:

now type the following command:

“mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/”

that will mount the CD-ROM.

Extract VMware Tools to /tmp/ using this command:

“tar -C /tmp -zxvf /mnt/VMwareTools-2.0.0-122956.tar.gz”  ( please note that the VMware tools version might be different for you because of newer version)

Step 4. unmount the virtual CD Drive with the following command:

“umount /mnt”

Step 5. Now run the installer using this command:

“cd /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib

the above command will get you to the “tmp/vmware-tools-distrib” directory, then execute the following command:

./vmware-install.pl”

because I had already installed the VMware tools, to practice for this tutorial, I get the message that VMware tools are already installed.

somewhere the installation will ask you the following question:

In which directory do you want to install the binary files?

type an absolute path when typing the answer like “/usr/bin/vmware”

type Y when it tells you ” the path”/usr/bin/vmware” does not exist currently. this program is going to create it. including needed parent directories. is this what you want?

this is part of the log of the installation I went through:

What is the directory that contains the init scripts? [/etc]
The file /etc/vmware-tools that this program was about to install already
exists. Overwrite? [yes] n

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

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

The path “/usr/lib/vmware” does not exist currently. This program is going to
create it, including needed parent directories. Is this what you want?
[yes] y 

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

The path “/usr/share/doc/vmware” does not exist currently. This program is
going to create it, including needed parent directories. Is this what you want?
[yes] y

The installation of VMware Tools 2.0.0 build-122956 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/vmware-uninstall-tools.pl”

at this point, I will need to reboot the computer.