Install VMware Tools in SUSE without installing additional packages
Installing VMware tools on Linux virtual machines can be challenging compared to installing the tools on Windows VMs. Unfortunately the differences of various different Linux distributions do not allow a universal point and click installer to be created. Each distribution has package dependencies that must be met, and those packages are installed by different means in their respective operating systems.
In my experience a few of the Linux operating systems will complete the tools install without pre-installing the dependencies. SUSE has been one of these distributions. It seems more and more companies are both performing P2V migrations of SUSE servers or building new VMs with the OS. This fact, in turn, means that understanding how to install VMware Tools in the SUSE OS has become a more frequently asked question. I wrote the following tutorial for a client running openSUSE. Although this was written for the open source version, use this post as an example for VMware Tools installation on SLES and other Linux distributions as well.
This openSUSE VMware Tools installation tutorial installs the base code to establish VMware Tools communication with VirtualCenter. To enable the complete VMware Tools feature set the gcc, binutils, make, and kernel source packages must be installed prior to running the vmware-configure-tools.pl script. This tutorial does not explain how to install these packages, but instead explains how to complete the VMware Tools install without them. This tutorial was written for a openSUSE server using the KDE desktop.
Users with IE6 and IE7 may have trouble viewing the table format and screenshots of this post so I am providing a .pdf version downloadable here.
| Try to install VMware Tools using VM Menu of VI Client |  |
| Click OK |  |
| Error mounting VMware Tools ISO.
A general system error occurred: Internal error |
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| Use Winscp to find Linux vmtools ISO on the ESX host
/vmimages/tools-ISO |
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| Copy all .ISO files to workstation. (for easy use during later tools installs) |  |
| Manually mount the Linux VMware Tools .ISO on the openSUSE VM from your workstation
Device type Click client device |
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| Click Connect CD/DVD to mount .ISO in VM. Choose connect to ISO image |  |
| Browse to folder on workstation and select the Linux.ISO |  |
| openSUSE mounts .ISO as CDrom and prompts what to do
Open in new window |
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| New window with contents of Linux.ISO CDrom
Open Konsole |
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| Copy VMware Tools. xxx .rpm file to openSUSE server.
Copy to /root |
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| Double click copied .rpm file.
Choose to install file with Yast |
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| Reading installed packages |  |
| Downloading and extracting
When complete click finish |
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| It may be wise to take VM snapshot before installing VMware Tools. Be sure to remove snapshot when done.
Use Konsole to run extracted vmware-config-tools.pl script |
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| Hit enter for default “yes” on try to build the vmmemtcl module.
NOTE:Hitting enter at all prompts will use default answers |
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| If unable to find “make” program change response to “no” to specify location and hit enter |  |
| Pay attention to messages at various prompts or pauses as they explain which packages are missing and need to be installed.
Hit enter after reviewing Packages needed are:Gcc, Binutils, Make, and Kernel sources |
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| Hit enter to answer default “yes” to attempt to build vmhgfs for your running kernel |  |
| If none of the pre-built vmhgfs modules for VMware Tools is suitable for your running kernel, change answer to “no” and hit enter
Package needed is gcc |
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| Hit enter to continue after reviewing info about vmhgfs and shared folder feature |  |
| Vmxnet needs a c compiler. If you have not already installed gcc and make packages change response to no and hit enter |  |
| After reviewing info about the vmxnet fast network driver hit enter. |  |
| Change response to “no” for vmblock prompt and hit enter |  |
| Review info about the vmblock drag and drop feature and hit enter when ready to continue. |  |
| Choose display size of VM desktop.
Default choice is “[3]”: “1024×768” Hit enter to accept default or enter number of preferred display size. |
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| Install complete
Must restart x session for changes to take effect Vmware-toolbox command information notice |
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| Run vmware-toolbox
Click time synchronization option from VMware Tools Properties window Click Close |
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| Reboot VM to enable all changes |  |
| Use VI Client to confirm VMware Tools OK for VM
Remember to remove any snapshots |
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Tags: how to, linux, sles, suse, virtualization, virtualmachine, vmware tools
July 7th, 2008 at 3:53 am
Please check link and pdf - I couldn’t open it with message “file corrupted”
July 7th, 2008 at 9:27 am
Mikhail,
Fixed the download link. Let me know if you still have issues.
Thanks for pointing it out!
July 7th, 2008 at 9:31 am
I cleaned up the .pdf version of this tutorial to make it smaller, so the screen shots in this post do not match the screen shots in the .pdf. The .pdf contains cropped versions of the post images. Higher compression was also used on the .pdf images. All in all, the .pdf is still readable, but the images are reduced for downloading.
-Rich
July 13th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
[...] “Install VMware Tools in SUSE without installing additional packages”.??? ?? ? pdf. ?????? [...]
August 16th, 2008 at 3:33 am
Hi, I can’t read the images, they’re very blurry. You don’t have a better quality version I could download, do you? Looks like a good tutorial, but I can’t read this OR the downloadable pdf, sadly they’re just too blurry. Thanks, Jon
August 16th, 2008 at 4:01 am
John,
I had to reduce image quality to keep the file small for bandwidth limitations. In my .pdf reader I can increase the zoom and read the images. Have you tried that? The screenshots are still fuzzy, but readable.