16 Nov

VMware tools in ESXi 5.1 on Ubuntu Server

This guide is to show you how to install VMware tools in ESXi 5.1 on Ubuntu Servers. To install VMWare Tools you need to mount the LINUX.ISO from the vmimages folder in the datastore. Once mounted, ensure your Virtual Machine has access to the internet. If you have installed the VMXNET2 or VMXNET3 network adapter you will need to remove and add the supported E1000 network adapter until we run through this update at which point you can remove the E1000 , and select VMXNET3 which will give you 10Gbps between your VM’s and network if it supports it.

1. Ensure you have network connectivity before continuing
2. Get all updates for the server
   sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
3. Create the mount point for the CDROM
   sudo mkdir -p /media/cdrom
4. Mount the ISO to the folder we created
   sudo mount /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom
5. Change the Directory
   cd /media/cdrom
6. Copy the tar file from your mounted CDROM/ISO to your /tmp directory
   sudo cp VM*.tar.gz /tmp (Sample Filename: VMwareTools-8.6.0-425873.tar.gz)
7. Install all these dependencies & build tools
   sudo apt-get install linux-headers-server build-essential
8. Change the Directory
   cd /tmp
9. Unmount the ISO we mounted earlier
   sudo umount /media/cdrom
10. Expand the tar
    sudo tar -zxvf VM*.tar.gz
11. Change Directory
    cd vmware-tools-distrib
12. Create a special directory
    sudo mkdir /usr/lib64
13. Run the Install Script
    sudo ./vmware-install.pl
14. Reboot
    sudo reboot