How to Install VMware Tools on RHEL 7/CentOS 7

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Mware Tools is one of important components for virtual machine (VM) in order get excellent performance. It is a group of utilities that help to enhances the overall performance of the virtual machine’s guest operating system (OS) and improves management of the VM. Without the VMware Tools, guest OS performance will lacks some of the important functionality. Below steps shows how to install the VMware Tools on RHEL 7, CentOS 7 and Oracle Linux 7.

How to Install VMware Tools ?

Option 1 (Recommended by VMware) – VMware support of open-vm-tools

open-vm-tools is an open source implementation of VMware Tools from third parties and contains utilities that enhances virtualization management, administration and functions of the virtual machine in VMware environments. The ultimate goal is to enable the operating system vendors and/or communities and virtual appliance vendors to bundle VMware Tools into their product releases.

# yum install open-vm-tools

Option 2 :

1. Install prerequisites :

# yum install perl gcc make kernel-headers kernel-devel -y

2. Attach the vmware tools sofware from vSphere client.

3. Mount the vmware tools package into /mnt :

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

4. Copy vmware tool packagae into /tmp :

# cd /mnt

# ls
manifest.txt     VMwareTools-9.4.0-1280544.tar.gz  vmware-tools-upgrader-64
run_upgrader.sh  vmware-tools-upgrader-32
# cp -p VMwareTools-9.4.0-1280544.tar.gz /tmp

5. Go to /tmp directory and extract the vmware tools package :

# cd /tmp
# tar xzvf VMwareTools-9.4.0-1280544.tar.gz

6. Go to extracted folder, vmware-tools-distrib :

# cd vmware-tools-distrib
# ls
bin  doc  etc  FILES  INSTALL  installer  lib  vmware-install.pl

7. Run vmware-install.pl to start installation :

# ./vmware-install.pl

Example:

# ./vmware-install.pl
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 9.4.0 build-1280544 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.

Stopping vmware-tools (via systemctl):                     [  OK  ]

The module vmci has already been installed on this system by another installer
or package and will not be modified by this installer.

The module vsock has already been installed on this system by another installer
or package and will not be modified by this installer.

The module vmxnet3 has already been installed on this system by another
installer or package and will not be modified by this installer.

The module pvscsi has already been installed on this system by another
installer or package and will not be modified by this installer.

The module vmmemctl has already been installed on this system by another
installer or package and will not be modified by this installer.

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]

The vmxnet driver is no longer supported on kernels 3.3 and greater. Please
upgrade to a newer virtual NIC. (e.g., vmxnet3 or e1000e)

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]

VMware automatic kernel modules enables automatic building and installation of
VMware kernel modules at boot that are not already present. This feature can be

enabled/disabled 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.
Starting vmware-tools (via systemctl):                     [  OK  ]
The configuration of VMware Tools 9.4.0 build-1280544 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

8. Once successfully installed, make sure you umount back the /mnt :

# umount /mnt