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

There you have it.

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