VMware tools are based on  proprietary modules for the Linux Kernel and therefore need compiling from source to install.

NB. Unless you have a specific reason to upgrade the supplied tools don’t worry about it. Our appliances make heavy use of the 64Bit e1000 network driver which is part of the default kernel, the appliance doesn’t strictly need any of the extra VMware tool functionality.

Prepare the VM:

Shutdown the VM
Add a CD hardware device
Change the guest OS from Linux Other (64bit) to RHEL 5.0 64bit
( this step applies to ESX based VM’s only and is needed to ensure that
the Vmware tools virtual CD can be mounted successfully, it is not needed for
Vmware Server / player based VM’s )
Boot the VM
Log in as root
Select upgrade VMWare Tools

Prepare folders and download & extract the kernel header files:

$ mkdir /usr/src/redhat
$ cd /usr/src/
$ wget http://www.loadbalancer.org/download2/loadbalancer/kernel-2.6.25.11CS3-headers.tar
$ tar -xvf kernel-2.6.25.11CS3-headers.tar
$ ln -s kernel-2.6.25.11CS3 linux

Mount the VMware tools virtual CD:

$ mkdir /mnt/cdrom ( or /media/cdrom which ever you prefer )
$ mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom

Now install the tools:

$ cd /tmp
$ tar -zxvf /path_to_cdrom/file.tar.gz
$ cd vmware-tools-distrib
$ ./vmware************ (just hit tab to fill in the file name it changes every update)

accept all defaults - just press enter at all prompts

FInally re-boot the VM to activate cleanly.

NB. You can delete the header files now if you wish, or leave them.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 13th, 2009 at 12:10 pm and is filed under Linux, Load Balancing, VMmware. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.