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Installing VMware tools

1. Install kernel headers and some tools used to install VMware tools:

sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r)


2. Mount the cdrom drive. Make sure you have mounted the VMware tools virtual cd from the host before moving on.

sudo mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/


3. Extract VMware tools to the tmp directory:

tar -C /tmp -zxvf /mnt/VMwareTools-x.x.x.tar.gz


The filename depends on the host software/OS.

4. Unmount the virtual cd:

sudo umount /mnt


5. Execute the installer

Make sure you run the following command from the Console, don’t try to run it using SSH because the network will be restarted and the installation will fail.

cd /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib
sudo ./vmware-install.pl


Accept the defaults for every question. Make sure you’re located inside the vmware-tools-distrib folder when executing the vmware-install.pl script or the installation will fail.

6. Reboot

To finish the installation and start the virtual machine with VMware tools installed, reboot the virtual machine:

reboot