You can manually install or upgrade VMware Tools on a Solaris virtual machine using the command line.

Prerequisites

  • Power on the virtual machine.
  • Verify that the guest operating system is running.
  • Because the VMware Tools installer is written in Perl, verify that Perl is installed in the guest operating system.
  • For vSphere virtual machines, determine whether you have the latest version of VMware Tools. In the vSphere Client inventory, select the virtual machine and click the Summary tab.

Procedure

  1. Select the menu command to mount the VMware Tools virtual disk on the guest operating system.
    VMware Product Action
    vSphere Client Right-click the virtual machine and select Guest OS > Install VMware Tools... or Guest OS > Upgrade VMware Tools...
    Fusion Virtual Machine > Install (or Upgrade) VMware Tools
    Workstation Pro VM > Install (or Upgrade) VMware Tools
    Workstation Player Player > Manage > Install (or Upgrade) VMware Tools
  2. In the virtual machine, log in to the guest operating system as root and open a terminal window.
  3. If the Solaris volume manager does not mount the CD-ROM under /cdrom/vmwaretools, restart the volume manager. 
    /etc/init.d/volmgt stop
/etc/init.d/volmgt start
  4. Change to a working directory, for example, /tmp and extract the tar file into this /tmp folder.
    cd /tmp
  5. Extract VMware Tools. 
    gunzip -c /cdrom/vmwaretools/vmware-solaris-tools.tar.gz | tar xf -
  6. Run the installer and configure VMware Tools. 
    cd vmware-tools-distrib
./vmware-install.pl

    Usually, the vmware-config-tools.pl configuration file runs after the installer file finishes running.

  7. Follow the prompts to accept the default values, if appropriate for your configuration.
  8. Follow the instructions at the end of the script.

    Depending on the features you use, these instructions can include restarting the X session, restarting networking, logging in again, and starting the VMware User process. You can alternatively reboot the guest operating system to accomplish all these tasks.

Results

If you are using vCenter Server, the VMware Tools label on the Summary tab changes to OK.

What to do next

If you upgraded VMware Tools as part of a vSphere upgrade, next determine whether to upgrade the virtual machines in your environment. To review and compare the hardware available for different compatibility levels, see the vSphere Virtual Machine Administration documentation.