Installing open-vm-tools

Most Linux distributions include open-vm-tools and some distributions install open-vm-tools by default. Most users will find open-vm-tools provided by Linux distrubutions to meet most of their needs. Note that different distributions update their version of open-vm-tools at different times. Users can update their open-vm-tools from the package repository provided by the Linux distribution.

Installation instructions would vary depending on the package management system used by the distribution. Sometimes another package repository can be configured to install a newer version from the OS vendor. For detailed instructions, refer to the documentation of the OS vendor.

Generally, open-vm-tools is supported for OSs that use three different package management systems:

• Ubuntu, Debian and other OSes from this family use apt to install Debian (*.deb) packages
• Redhat, Fedora and CentOS use dnf or yum to install RPM (*.rpm) packages
• SuSE Linux Enterprise (SLE) and OpenSuSE use zypper to install RPM (*.rpm) packages

All distributions split the package into a system and a desktop component. The latter is useful on systems that have a graphical UI (X11, Wayland, and so on). The package names are 'open-vm-tools' and 'open-vm-tools-desktop'. SLE and OpenSuSE ship another package 'libvmtools' as a dependency. The package management system will automatically install this dependency when 'open-vm-tools' or 'open-vm-tools-desktop' are installed

Prerequisites

Like installing any other software on the guest, set up the package repository properly for the guest.

Procedure

1. Ubuntu, Debian, and related
   1. Make sure the package index is updated:

      sudo apt-get update

   2. The command to install and upgrade are the same. If the VM has a GUI (X11, and so on), install or upgrade open-vm-tools-desktop:

      sudo apt-get install open-vm-tools-desktop

   3. Otherwise, install open-vm-tools:

      sudo apt-get install open-vm-tools

2. RHEL, Fedora and CentOS
   1. If the VM has a GUI (X11, and so on), install or upgrade open-vm-tools-desktop:

      sudo yum install open-vm-tools-desktop

   2. Otherwise, install open-vm-tools:

      sudo yum install open-vm-tools

3. SLE and OpenSuSE
   1. If the VM has a GUI (X11, and so on), install or upgrade open-vm-tools-desktop:

      zypper install open-vm-tools-desktop

   2. Otherwise, install open-vm-tools:

      zypper install open-vm-tools