Installing VMware Tools and the Network Driver in the Guest Operating System

VMware ESX Server 1.5
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This section describes how to install VMware Tools and the network driver in the guest operating system.

Note the following:

The steps for each guest operating system assume that you are working from a remote console connected to your virtual machine.
Prepare your virtual machine to install VMware Tools. Choose Settings > VMware Tools Install.
This option prepares the CD-ROM drive in the virtual machine to use an ISO image file containing the VMware Tools packages. This image, which appears as a regular CD-ROM disk in the virtual machine, was placed on your server machine when you installed VMware ESX Server.

Installing VMware Tools and the Network Driver in a Windows 2000 Guest

Choose Settings > VMware Tools Install.
This step connects the virtual machine's CD-ROM drive to an ISO image file on the ESX Server machine. If autorun is enabled in your guest operating system (the default setting for Windows operating systems), a dialog box appears after a few seconds. It asks if you want to install VMware Tools. Click Install to launch the installation wizard.
If autorun is not enabled, the dialog box does not appear automatically. If it doesn't appear, run VMwareTools.exe from the CD-ROM drive (Start > Run > D:\VMwareTools.exe, where D: is the first CD-ROM drive in your virtual machine) to install VMware Tools.
Do one of the following:
- If you configured this virtual machine to use the vlance network driver, go to step 6.
- If you configured this virtual machine to use the vmxnet network driver, open the Windows Control Panel (Start > Settings > Control Panel) and double-click Add/Remove Hardware.
In the Add/Remove Hardware Wizard, select Add/Troubleshoot a Device. Windows searches for Plug and Play devices.
From the long list of hardware devices, select Ethernet Controller and click Next. You should get a message that the drivers for this device are not installed. Click Finish to continue.
Click Next on the Upgrade Device Wizard screen. Select Search for a suitable driver for my hardware device and instruct Windows to search the CD-ROM drive. Windows should find D:\vmnet\win2k\oemsetup.inf (where D: is the first CD-ROM drive in your virtual machine). Click Next and Yes to complete the installation of the VMware network driver.
When installation is complete, choose Settings > Cancel Tools Install to disconnect the ISO image file and return the virtual machine's CD-ROM drive to its original configuration.

Installing VMware Tools and the Network Driver in a Windows NT 4.0 Guest

Choose Settings > VMware Tools Install.
This step connects the virtual machine's CD-ROM drive to an ISO image file on the ESX Server machine. If autorun is enabled in your guest operating system (the default setting for Windows operating systems), a dialog box appears after a few seconds. It asks if you want to install VMware Tools. Click Install to launch the installation wizard.
If autorun is not enabled, the dialog box does not appear automatically. If it doesn't appear, run VMwareTools.exe from the CD-ROM drive (Start > Run > D:\VMwareTools.exe, where D: is the first CD-ROM drive in your virtual machine) to install VMware Tools.
Do one of the following:
- If you configured this virtual machine to use the vlance network driver, go to step 5.
- If you configured this virtual machine to use the vmxnet network driver, choose Start > Control Panel > Network > Adapters and click Add.
Click Have Disk and enter D:\vmnet\winnt in the Insert Disk dialog (where D: is the first CD-ROM drive in your virtual machine). Click OK when VMware Virtual Ethernet Adapter is displayed in the Select OEM Option dialog. The VMware network driver is installed.
Click Close in the Adapters dialog box to complete the installation. Windows lets you configure the Internet address for the card.
If you are installing on a virtual machine that was created with VMware Workstation and used networking, you must use an address different from the one the original network configuration used (since that address is still assigned to the now nonexistent virtual AMD card). Or you can change the address assigned to the AMD card at this point.
Note: The VMware Virtual Ethernet Adapter driver runs correctly only if you have Service Pack 3 or later installed. If you do not have the proper service pack installed yet, you may get an error message such as: "System Process - Driver Entry Point Not Found; The \SystemRoot\System32\drivers\vmxnet.sys device driver could not locate the entry point NdisGetFirstBufferFromPacket in driver NDIS.SYS." However, even if you get this message, the driver should work if you subsequently install the correct service pack.
When installation is complete, and before you reboot, choose Settings > Cancel Tools Install to disconnect the ISO image file and return the virtual machine's CD-ROM drive to its original configuration.
Reboot the virtual machine.

Installing VMware Tools and the Network Driver in a Linux Guest

Choose Settings > VMware Tools Install.
This step connects the virtual machine's CD-ROM drive to an ISO image file on the ESX Server machine.
In your Linux guest, become root, mount the VMware Tools virtual CD-ROM, copy the installer file from the virtual CD-ROM to /tmp, then unmount the CD-ROM.
su cd / mount -t iso9660 /dev/cdrom /mnt cp /mnt/vmware-linux-tools.tar.gz /tmp umount /dev/cdrom
Untar the VMware Tools tar file in /tmp and install it.
cd /tmp tar zxf vmware-linux-tools.tar.gz cd vmware-linux-tools ./install.pl
Note: When installing VMware Tools in some versions of Linux, the installer will need to recompile VMware Tools. For this to work, you will need to have a C compiler installed in the guest. In some cases you may get compiler warning messages during the VMware Tools installation. However, the control panel and drivers will still work correctly.
Do one of the following.
- If you configured this virtual machine to use the vlance network driver, go to step 6.
- If you configured this virtual machine to use the vmxnet network driver, test to be sure that the vmxnet driver is installed correctly.
  insmod vmxnet
If the driver is installed correctly, you see some informative output but no error messages. In addition, you should now have an entry such as
alias eth0 vmxnet in the file /etc/modules.conf (or
/etc/conf.modules in Red Hat Linux 6.2).
When installation is complete, choose Settings > Cancel Tools Install to disconnect the ISO image file and return the virtual machine's CD-ROM drive to its original configuration.
If you wish, start X and your graphical environment and launch the VMware Tools background application.
vmware-toolbox &

Note: If you created this virtual machine using only the vmxnet driver, you now need to run netconfig or another network configuration utility in the virtual machine to set up the virtual network adapter.

Starting VMware Tools Automatically

You may find it helpful to configure your guest operating system so VMware Tools starts when you start X. The steps for doing so will vary, depending on your Linux distribution and the desktop environment you are running. Check your operating system documentation for the appropriate steps to take.

For example, in a Red Hat Linux 7.1 guest using GNOME, follow these steps.

Open the Startup Programs panel in the GNOME Control Center.
Main Menu (the foot in the lower left corner of the screen) > Programs > Settings > Session > Startup Programs
Click Add....
In the Startup Command field, enter vmware-toolbox.
Click OK, click OK again, then close the GNOME Control Center.

The next time you start X, VMware Tools will be started automatically.

Installing VMware Tools in a FreeBSD Guest

Choose Settings > VMware Tools Install.
This step connects the virtual machine's CD-ROM drive to an ISO image file on the ESX Server machine.
In your Linux guest, become root, mount the VMware Tools floppy, copy the contents of the virtual floppy disk to /tmp, then unmount the floppy.
su cd / mount -t iso9660 /dev/cdrom /mnt cp /mnt/vmware-freebsd-tools.tar.gz /tmp umount /dev/fd0
Untar the VMware Tools tar file in /tmp and install it.
su cd /tmp tar zxf vmware-freebsd-tools.tar.gz cd vmware-freebsd-tools ./install.pl
When installation is complete, choose Settings > Cancel Tools Install to disconnect the ISO image file and return the virtual machine's CD-ROM drive to its original configuration.
Start X and your graphical environment if they are not started yet.
In an X terminal, launch the VMware Tools background application.
vmware-toolbox &

You may run VMware Tools as root or as a normal user.

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