Best Practices- Installing CentOS VM on
VMware Workstation
- Part 2
INSTALLING VMware TOOLS
in PART 1, we saw how to effectively install CentOS 5.8 on VMware Workstation...
in this PART, we will install VMware Tools in the VM..
NOTE: If you had selected Easy Install during the install process from Workstation, then this step can be avoided as Easy Install installs VMware-Tools automatically.. still if you ever want, you can install VMware-Tools anytime you want...
Benefits of VMware Tools
The followings are benefits of VMware Tools on your Guest OS:
- A set of VMware device drivers:
These drivers include:
- Graphics Performance: VMware Tools installs a SVGA driver that increases vide0 refresh.
- Efficient Memory Allocation: A memory control driver that is installed with VMware Tools provides increased efficiency in memory allocation.
- Accelerated Mouse Driver: For increased mouse responsiveness.
- Optimized SCSI Driver: A Bus Logic SCSI driver provides faster I/O performance for some guest OS.
VMware Tools control panel:
The Tools control panel lets you modify settings.
- Run Scripts: Scripts can be defined to run after particular events such as the VM starting up or shutting down.
- Shrink the Virtual Disk: By reducing the amount of disk space a VM’s virtual disk takes up by removing empty unused space will lead to more usable storage on your hosts volume.
Connect External Devices:
- You can connect external media devices such as a floppy (who uses those anymore) or CD/DVD drive. These appear as a virtual device when presented within the guest
To summarize,Installing VMware Tools eliminates or improves the following issues:
- Low video resolution
- Inadequate color depth
- Incorrect display of network speed
- Restricted movement of the mouse
- Inability to copy and paste and drag-and-drop files
- Missing sound
Installing VMware Tools within X
Select VM > Install VMware Tools in your Workstation menu as shown:
When you choose VM > Install VMware Tools from the VMware Workstation menu, VMware Workstation temporarily connects the virtual machine's first virtual CD-ROM drive to the ISO image file that contains the VMware Tools installer for your guest operating system and you are ready to begin the installation process.
Double-click the VMware Tools CD icon on the desktop.
Note: In some Linux distributions, the VMware Tools CD icon may fail to appear when you install VMware Tools within an X windows session on a guest.
Extract the VMwareTools.tar to the Desktop as shown below:
In an X terminal, logged in as root (su -), configure VMware Tools by navigating to the path where we extracted the VMwareTools.tar contents.. in this case, its /root/Desktop/vmware-tools-distrib/
Once there, simply execute the vmware-install.pl file as shown below:
Respond to the questions the installer displays on the screen. Press Enter to accept the default value.
Note: Be sure to respond yes when the installer offers to run the configuration program.
Note: Some guest operating systems require a reboot for full functionality.
Installing VMware Tools from the Command Line with the Tar Installer
The first steps are performed on the host, within Workstation menus:
1. Power on the virtual machine.
2. After the guest operating system has started, prepare your virtual machine to install VMware Tools.
- Choose VM > Install VMware Tools.
The remaining steps take place inside the virtual machine.
3. As root (su -), mount the VMware Tools virtual CD-ROM image, change to a working directory (for example, /tmp), uncompress the installer, then unmount the CD-ROM image.
Note: Some Linux distributions automatically mount CD-ROMs. If your distribution uses automounting, do not use the mount and umount commands below. You still must untar the VMware Tools installer to /tmp.
Some Linux distributions use different device names or organize the /dev directory differently. If your CD-ROM drive is not /dev/cdrom or if the mount point for a CD-ROM is not /mnt/cdrom, you must modify the following commands to reflect the conventions used by your distribution.
- mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
- cd /tmp
Note: If you have a previous installation, delete the previous vmware-distrib directory before installing. The default location of this directory is
/tmp/vmware-tools-distrib.
4. Untar the VMware Tools tar file:
- tar zxf /mnt/cdrom/VMwareTools-5.0.0-<xxxx>.tar.gz
- umount /dev/cdrom
Where <xxxx> is the build/revision number of the VMware Workstation release.
Note: If you attempt to install a tar installation over an rpm installation — or the reverse — the installer detects the previous installation and must convert the installer database format before continuing.
5. Run the .tar VMware Tools installer:
- cd vmware-tools-distrib
- ./vmware-install.pl
Respond to the configuration questions on the screen. Press Enter to accept the default value.
6. Log off of the root account.
- exit
7. Start X and your graphical environment
8. In an X terminal, launch the VMware Tools background application.
- vmware-toolbox &
Note: You may run VMware Tools as root or as a normal user. To shrink virtual disks, you must run VMware Tools as root (su -).
Uninstalling VMware Tools
To remove VMware Tools from your Linux guest operating system, log on as root (su -) and enter the following command:
From a tar install
- vmware-uninstall-tools.pl
From an RPM install
rpm -e VMwareTools
In PART 3 of this series, I'll show you how to ADD A EXTERNAL HDD TO CentOS AND THEN MOUNT IT !!
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