Install/Upgrade VMware Tools on Ubuntu Server guest

I'm always "googling" this task whenever I have to install or upgrade the VMware Tools on a Linux VM guest. I figure I would make a post for future reference.

Ingredients used for the recipe:

• Host: VMware ESX Server 4.0
• Guest: Ubuntu Server 9.10

1. Use the vSphere Client to connect to a vCenter Server or directly to an ESX host.

2. Right-click the virtual machine and select Open Console.

3. Log into Ubuntu with an administrative user account.

4. From the Virtual Machines tab, right-click the Linux VM -> Guest -> Install/Upgrade VMware Tools



5. Create a root login shell.

$ sudo -i

6. Update and install prerequisite packages.

# apt-get update
# apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r) psmisc

7. Mount the CD drive and change to the directory.

# mount /media/cdrom; cd $_

8. Extract the compressed file to the /tmp directory and then cd to it.

# tar xf VMwareTools-*.tar.gz -C /tmp
# cd /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib

9. Execute the vmware-install.pl Perl script with the defaults option.

# ./vmware-install.pl -d

10. Remove the temporary installation.

# rm -rf /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib

11. Unmount the CD drive.

# umount /media/cdrom

Note: You will need to reinitialize the VMware toolset after a kernel upgrade.

# /usr/bin/vmware-config-tools.pl