vmware-tools-administration-guide

VMware Tools
Administration
VMware Tools 12.3.0
VMware Tools Administration
You can find the most up-to-date technical documentation on the VMware by Broadcom website at:
https://docs.vmware.com/
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VMware by Broadcom 2
Contents
About VMware Tools Administration 5
1 Introduction to VMware Tools 6

VMware Tools Services 7
VMware Tools Lifecycle Management 8
VMware Tools Device Drivers 10
VMware User Process 12
Open VM Tools 13
Operating System Specific Packages for Linux Guest Operating Systems 15
2 Installing VMware Tools 17

Disable Access Protection from McAfee Antivirus Virus Scan Console 18
Enable Carbon Black Sensor using VMware Tools for Windows 19
Enable Salt Minion Using VMware Tools 21
Manually Install VMware Tools on Windows 26
Manually Install VMware Tools on Windows Arm 27
Automatically Install VMware Tools on Multiple Windows Virtual Machines 28
Specify VMware Tools Components in Silent Installation 29
Manually Install VMware Tools on Linux 32
Manually Install VMware Tools on macOS 35
Manually Install VMware Tools on Solaris 36
Install Open VM Tools 37
3 Upgrading VMware Tools 39

Configure Virtual Machines to Automatically Upgrade VMware Tools 41
Manually Upgrade VMware Tools in Virtual Machines 41
Automatically Upgrade VMware Tools in Virtual Machines 42
VMware Tools Installer Logging to Host 43
4 Installing and Automatically Upgrading VMware Tools Component 46
5 Configuring VMware Tools Components 48

Using VMware Tools Configuration File 48
Configure Network Interface Information 49
Exclude Specific File Systems from Quiesced Snapshots 50
Security Considerations to Configure VMware Tools 51
Using Custom VMware Tools Scripts 54
Default VMware Tools Scripts 54
Custom VMware Tools Scripts for Windows 55

Custom VMware Tools Scripts for Multiple OSs Except Windows 57
Disable VMware Tools Script 57
Using VMware Tools Configuration Utility 58
Enable Periodic Time Synchronization 59
Disable Periodic Time Synchronization 61
Connect or Disconnect a Virtual Device 62
View Virtual Machine Status Information 63
Configure appInfo 67
Configure ContainerInfo for Linux 69
Configure Service Discovery 70
Configure VMware Time Provider for Windows 71
Use GuestStore 72
Manually Install VMware Tools on Windows Arm 76
6 Uninstalling VMware Tools 78
7 Configuring Customer Experience Improvement Program 80

Categories of Information That VMware Receives 80
Join or Leave Customer Experience Improvement Program in vSphere Client 80
8 VMware Tools Install and Upgrade Issues 81

Install or Upgrade to VMware Tools 10.3.0 81
9 Troubleshooting VMware Tools Components 83

Repair VMware Tools Components in Windows Virtual Machine 83
Start VMware User Process Manually 83
10 VMware Tools FAQs 85
About VMware Tools Administration
VMware Tools Administration document describes how to install, upgrade, and configure
VMware Tools.
Intended Audience
The information in VMware Tools Administration document is intended for system administrators
who are familiar with virtualization, and want to install, configure, and upgrade VMware Tools.
VMware Technical Publications Glossary

VMware Technical Publications provides a glossary of terms that might be unfamiliar to you.
For definitions of terms as they are used in VMware technical documentation, go to http://
www.vmware.com/support/pubs.
Introduction to VMware Tools
1
VMware Tools is a set of services and modules that enable several features in VMware products
for better management of guests operating systems and seamless user interactions with them.
VMware Tools has the ability to:
n Pass messages from the host operating system to the guest operating system.
n Customize guest operating systems as a part of the vCenter Server and other VMware
products.
n Run scripts that help automate guest operating system operations. The scripts run when the
power state of the virtual machine changes.
n Synchronize the time in the guest operating system with the time on the host operating
system
VMware Tools Lifecycle Management provides a simplified and scalable approach for installation
and upgrade of VMware Tools. It includes a number of feature enhancements, driver-related
enhancements, and support for new guest operating systems.
You must run the latest version of VMware Tools or use open-vm-tools distributed with the Linux
OS distribution. Although a guest operating system can run without VMware Tools, you must
always run the latest version of VMware Tools in your guest operating systems to access the
latest features and updates.
You can configure your virtual machine to automatically check and apply VMware Tools
upgrades each time you power on your virtual machines.
For information about enabling automatic upgrade of VMware Tools on your virtual machines,
see vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Guide
Read the following topics next:
n VMware Tools Services
n VMware Tools Lifecycle Management
n VMware Tools Device Drivers
n VMware User Process
n Open VM Tools
n Operating System Specific Packages for Linux Guest Operating Systems
VMware Tools Services

The VMware Tools services start when the guest operating system starts. The service passes
information between host and guest operating systems.
n VMware Alias Manager and Ticket Service or VGAuthService: VGAuthService in taskmgr

provides support for SAML based authentication for vSphere Guest Operations, see
guest.SAMLTokenAuthentication and vim.vm.guest.GuestOperationsManager.
n VMware Snapshot Provider Service: VMware Snapshot Provider Service provides support
for freezing or thawing file systems for VSS (Volume Shadow Copy Service).
Note This is applicable for Windows guest operating systems only.
n VMware Tools Daemon Service: This application runs in the background. It is called
vmtoolsd.exe on Windows guest operating systems, vmware-tools-daemon on Mac OS
X guest operating systems, and vmtoolsd on Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris guest operating
systems. The VMware Tools service performs the following tasks using the plug-ins:
n autohidpi - Set guest screen resolution for Mac OS X guest operating systems.
n autoLogon - Bypasses the guest operating system login when powering on a VM.
n autoUpgrade - Handles VMware Tools upgrade operations.
n bitMapper - Creates a bit map of disk blocks used by the guest operating system, used in
vMotion.
n deployPkg - Handles guest customization operations.
n desktopEvents - Starting or stopping VMware Tools user service based on screen/X11

changes.
Note This is a VMware Tools user service plugin.
n disableGuestHibernate - Disables option for hibernation in guest operating system.
n diskWiper - Releases unused guest disk blocks so they can be reclaimed by the
hypervisor.
n dndcp - Drag and drop, copy and paste operations. Enables copying and pasting of text,
graphics, and files between guest operating systems and hosts or client desktops. This is
a VMware Tools user service plugin.
n appInfo - Collects the information about running applications inside the guest and
publishes the information to a guest variable.
n guestInfo - Collects and reports guest information and statistics to hypervisor.
n hgfsServer - HGFS server for transferring files, drag and drop and VMware Tools upgrade
operations.
n hgfsUsability - Handles mapping HGFS folders to special user folders, adds HGFS links
to the desktop.
n hwUpgradeHelper - Handles changes due to virtual hardware upgrade.
n powerOps - Handles graceful shutdown and reboot of the guest, and execution of scripts
for a power operation.
n resolutionKMS - Handles communicating guest user interface topology to the vmwgfx

drm (direct rendering manager) driver.
Note This plugin is for Linux only.
n resolutionSet - Handles guest screen re-sizing when vmwgfx drm (direct rendering
manager) driver is not available.
n timeSync - Synchronizes guest clock with host clock at power on or resume.
n vmbackup - Handles freezing and thawing file systems during a quiesced snapshot
operation.
n vmtray - Provides VMware Tools tray icon and pop-up menu.
Note This is a VMware Tools user service plugin.
n vsep - Manages NSX file and network introspection.
n vix - Handles guest operations related to files, processes and registry.
VMware Tools Lifecycle Management

Starting with a major version 10.1.0, VMware tools added simplified and scalable approach for
install and upgrade of VMware Tools, reboot less upgrade for newer Linux Tools, support for
OSP upgrades, enhanced version reporting using UI and status reporting using API and UI. This
version was released with a number of feature enhancements, driver related enhancements and
support for new guest operating systems. With offline bundles and the integration with SCCM to
distribute and upgrade VMware Tools, VMware Tools 12.3.0 brings in several improvements to
lifecycle management.
n Offline bundles with VMware Tools VIB that can be installed on vSphere 5.5.x, 6.0.x and 6.5.x
releases using vSphere Update Manager.
n Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) is used to manage the deployment
of Windows applications across an enterprise and can be used to deploy VMware Tools. For
more information, see Deploying VMware Tools using SCCM.
VMware Tools 12.3.0 depends on and ships Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable
version 14.x. While preparing the system for VMware Tools 12.3.0 installation, Microsoft Visual
C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable is installed on the system as a prerequisite.
Mapping of VMware Tools and Guest Operating System

In earlier versions, VMware Tools ISO images were shipped with the ESXi image. These ISO
images are deployed on ProductLocker partition of the ESXi. However, this approach poses
a challenge due to limited space in ProductLocker. In order to address this space limitation,
only windows.iso and linux.iso are bundled with ESXi. Other ISO images are available for
download from https://support.broadcom.com and will not be shipped with ESXi in the tools-light
vib. ISO images for few end of life guest operating systems are frozen.
Table 1-1. VMware Tools support for Guest Operating Systems
ISO Images Supported Guest Operating System Available Version
windows.iso Windows Vista SP2 and later 10.3.0

n Windows OS level prerequisites
n Windows Server 2016
n Windows 10
n Windows Server 2012 R2 with Microsoft
update KB2919355
n Windows 8.1 with Microsoft update
KB2919355
n Windows Server 2012
n Windows 8
n Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1
(SP1)
n Windows 7 SP1
n Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2)
n Windows Vista SP2
linux.iso Linux guest operating systems with glibc version 10.3.0

2.5 and later
darwin.iso MAC OS versions 10.11 and later 10.3.0
solaris.iso Solaris operating systems 10.3.0
Table 1-2. VMware Tools support for frozen Guest Operating Systems
ISO images Supported Guest Operating System Version of VMware Tools
winPre2k.iso Versions earlier than Windows 2000 7.7.0
netware.iso Netware operating systems 8.1.0
winPreVista.iso Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 10.0.12

2003
Note The Windows pre-Vista iso image for

VMWare Tools is no longer packaged with ESXi.
The Windows pre-Vista iso image is available for
download by users who require it.
Table 1-2. VMware Tools support for frozen Guest Operating Systems (continued)
ISO images Supported Guest Operating System Version of VMware Tools
linuxPreGLibc25.iso Linux guest operating systems earlier than RHEL 5, 10.0.12

SLES 11, and other distributions with glibc version
earlier than 2.5
darwinPre15.iso MAC OS versions earlier than 10.10.x 10.0.12
VMware Tools Device Drivers

Device drivers improve sound, graphics, networking, and storage performance. You can select
the drivers to be installed while performing a custom VMware Tools installation or reinstallation.
The set of drivers that are installed when you install VMware Tools depends on the guest
operating system and the VMware product. For detailed information about the features
or functionality of these drivers, including configuration requirements, best practices, and
performance, see the documentation for your VMware product. The following device drivers can
be included with VMware Tools.
VMCI Driver
The Virtual Machine Communication Interface driver supports fast and efficient
communication between virtual machines and the hosts they run on. Developers can write
client-server applications to the VMCI Sock (vsock) interface to make use of the VMCI virtual
device.
VMCI driver is installed by default as part of VMware Tools installation. If the user had
disabled this VMCI driver in the setup settings during a previous installation, VMware Tools
automatically re-installs VMCI driver during the upgrade.
Note VMCI driver cannot be disabled as the VMware Tools System service functionality is
dependent on this driver.
Guest Introspection Driver
The two Guest Introspection drivers are the File Introspection driver and the Network
Introspection driver. You can install the two drivers separately. When you install VMware
Tools, by default, the Guest Introspection drivers are not installed.
n NSX File Introspection Driver: The File Introspection driver uses the hypervisor to perform
antivirus scans without a bulky agent. This strategy avoids resource bottlenecks and
optimizes memory use.
n NSX Network Introspection Driver: The Network Introspection driver supports NSX for
vSphere Activity Monitoring.
SVGA Driver
This virtual driver enables 32-bit displays, high display resolution, and faster graphics
performance. When you install VMware Tools, a virtual SVGA driver replaces the default VGA
driver, which allows for only 640 X 480 resolution and 16-color graphics.
On Windows guest operating systems whose operating system is Windows Vista or later, the
VMware SVGA 3D (Microsoft - WDDM) driver is installed. This driver provides the same base
functionality as the SVGA driver, and it adds Windows Aero support.
VMXNet NIC Driver
The VMXNET and VMXNET3 networking drivers improve network performance. The set of
drivers that are used depends on how you configure device settings for the virtual machine.
Search the VMware Knowledge Base for information on which guest operating systems
support these drivers.
When you install VMware Tools, a VMXNET NIC driver replaces the default vlance driver.
Paravirtual SCSI Driver
When you create a virtual machine, if you specify that you want the virtual machine to
use a BusLogic adapter, the guest operating system uses the SCSI driver that VMware
Tools provides. A VMware Paravirtual SCSI driver is included for use with Paravirtual SCSI
devices. This driver for VMware Paravirtual SCSI adapters enhances the performance of
some virtualized applications. Drivers for other storage adapters are either bundled with the
operating system, or they are available from third-party vendors.
For example, Windows Server 2008 defaults to LSI Logic SAS, which provides the best
performance for that operating system. In this case, the LSI Logic SAS driver provided by the
operating system is used.
VMware supplies a special SCSI driver for virtual machines that are configured to use the
BusLogic virtual SCSI adapter. Virtual machines do not need this driver if they do not need to
access any SCSI devices or if they are configured to use the LSI Logic virtual SCSI adapter.
The driver is included as part of the VMware Tools package or comes bundled with
VMware ESX/ ESXi. It is available on the host as a floppy image at /vmimages/floppies/
vmscsi.flp. The driver can be used in Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, or Windows
2000.
Mouse Driver
The virtual mouse driver improves mouse performance. This driver is required if you use
third-party tools such as Microsoft Terminal Services.
Audio Driver
This sound driver is required for 64-bit Windows XP, 32-bit Windows Server 2003, 64-
bit Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Vista guest
operating systems.
Memory controller driver
This driver is required for memory ballooning and is recommended if you use VMware
vSphere. Excluding this driver hinders the memory management capabilities of the virtual
machine in a vSphere deployment.
Modules and drivers that support making automatic backups of virtual machines
If the guest operating system is Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, or other newer
Windows operating systems, a Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS) module is installed.
For other, earlier Windows operating systems, the Filesystem Sync driver is installed. These
modules allow external third-party back up software that is integrated with vSphere to create
application-consistent snapshots. During the snapshot process, certain processes are paused
and virtual machine disks are quiesced. The modules also support quiescing snapshot on
Linux OS
VMware drivers for Linux
The drivers for Linux are automatically installed during your operating system installation,
eliminating the need to separately install drivers after OS installation. VMware actively
maintains the source code for VMware Paravirtual drivers, VMXNET, VMXNET3 and kernel
modules, and any Linux distributions creating new OS releases automatically include the
latest VMware drivers.
Do not delete or replace existing inbox drivers for Linux that are distributed by your OS
vendors. Deleting or replacing these drivers might cause conflict with future updates to the
drivers. Contact your OS vendor or OS community for availability of specific updates to
drivers.
See http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2073804 for information about availability, maintenance, and

support policy for inbox drivers for Linux.
VMHGFS driver
If you use Workstation or Fusion, you can install the Shared Folders component. With Shared
Folders, you can easily share files among virtual machines and the host computer. The
VMHGFS driver is a file system redirector that allows file system redirection from the guest
operating system to the host file system. This driver is the client component of the Shared
Folders feature and provides an easy to use alternative to NFS and CIFS file sharing that does
not rely on the network. For Linux distributions with kernel version 3.10 and later, a new FUSE
based Shared Folders client is used as a replacement for the kernel mode client.
VMware User Process

VMware user process allow you to use certain features (such as copy, paste, drag, drop and so
on) with Vmware product supporting them.
In Linux, Solaris, Windows and FreeBSD guest operating systems, VMware Tools uses the
VMware User process executable file that implements fit-guest-to-window feature.
The user process starts automatically when you log in to a Windows guest operating system. On
Linux, the user process starts when you start a Desktop Environment session. The user process
can also be started manually.
The program file for this process is called vmtoolsd.exe on Windows guest operating systems
and vmtoolsd on Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD guest operating systems. In POSIX, it is vmtoolsd
with -n vmusr on command line interface. The user process supports the following tasks:
n Enables copy and paste of text between guest operating system and the vSphere Web Client
or the Workstation, Fusion, or Player host operating system. For virtual machines that are
used with Workstation or Fusion, you can copy and paste files between the host operating
system and Windows, Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD guest operating systems.
n On Linux, Solaris, Windows, and FreeBSD guest operating systems, grabs and releases the
pointer if the SVGA driver is not installed.
n On Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD guest operating systems, fits the screen display resolution of
the guest to the screen resolution of the vSphere Web Client or the Workstation, Fusion, or
Player host operating system, if running in full screen mode. If running in normal (windowed)
mode, fits the screen resolution of the guest to the size of the window on the client or host.
n For virtual machines used with Workstation or Fusion, allows you to drag files between the
host operating system and Windows, Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD guest operating systems.
Open VM Tools
Open VM Tools (open-vm-tools) is the open source implementation of VMware Tools for Linux
and FreeBSD guest operating systems.
The open-vm-tools suite is bundled with some Linux operating systems and is installed as a part
of the OS, eliminating the need to separately install the suite on guest operating systems. All
leading Linux vendors support the open-vm-tools suite on vSphere, Workstation, and Fusion, and
bundle open-vm-tools with their product releases. For information about OS compatibility check
for the open-vm-tools suite, see the VMware Compatibility Guide at http://www.vmware.com/
resources/compatibility.
Note Use of open-vm-tools with a OS distribution which is not listed under VMware
Compatibility Guide must be certified by VMware.
Bundling open-vm-tools with Linux OS releases reduces virtual machine downtime because all
updates to the open-vm-tools suite are included with the OS maintenance patches and updates.
You do not have to maintain separate maintenance cycles for open-vm-tools suite updates. This
is also applicable for VMware guest operating system drivers.
In some cases, open-vm-tools is installed by default when you install your guest operating
systems. In other cases, the open-vm-tools suite is not installed by default, unless specifically
selected during installation.
Follow the installation instructions provided by your OS vendor for your specific release or check
the partner Web site at http://partnerweb.vmware.com/GOSIG/home.html.
VMware fully supports open-vm-tools that are developed in collaboration with OS vendors and
open source communities and recommends using open-vm-tools that are redistributed by your
OS vendors.
Note For support on open-vm-tools, you must contact the Linux OS vendors.
Open VM Tools Packages

For better managing guest operating systems, the open-vm-tools suite includes the following
packages:
n The core open-vm-tools package contains the core open-vm-tools user space utilities,
application programs, and libraries, including vmtoolsd, to help effectively manage
communication between your host and guest OSs. This package includes features as,
synchronizing guest OS clocks with the virtualization platform, transferring files between
hosts and guests, sending heartbeat information from guest OSs to the virtualization
infrastructure to support vSphere High Availability (HA), publishing resource utilization and
networking information of the guest OSs to the virtualization platform, and so on.
n The open-vm-tools-desktop package is optional and includes additional user programs

and libraries to improve the interactive functionality of desktop operations of your virtual
machines. The package enables you to resize a guest display to match its host console
window or the VMware Remote Console Window for vSphere. The package also allows you
to copy and paste between host and guest OSs, as well as to drag and drop between guests
and a host for the VMware Workstation and VMware Fusion products.
n The open-vm-tools-devel package contains libraries and additional documentation for

developing vmtoolsd plug-ins and applications.
n The open-vm-tools-debuginfo package contains the source code for open-vm-tools and
binary files. For the latest copy of the Open VM Tools source code, see the GitHub Web site
at https://github.com/vmware/open-vm-tools.
List of operating systems with open-vm-tools
n Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.0 and later releases
n SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 and later releases
n Ubuntu 14.04 and later releases
n CentOS 7 and later releases
n FreeBSD 10.3, 10.4 & 11.1
n Debian 7.x and later releases
n Oracle Linux 7 and later
n Fedora 19 and later releases
n openSUSE 11.x and later releases
Note To manually install open-vm-tools on a FreeBSD virtual machine, see FreeBSD 10.x and
FreeBSD 11.x
Important If you use an open-vm-tools, the VMware Tools status is Guest Managed on the
virtual machine Summary tab. The status Guest Managed means that you cannot use the vCenter
Server to manage VMware Tools and you cannot use vSphere Update Manager to upgrade
VMware Tools.
For information about the open-vm-tools support policy and availability, see the VMware
knowledge base article at http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2073803.
Operating System Specific Packages for Linux Guest

Operating Systems
For vSphere deployments, VMware provides operating system specific packages (OSPs) as
a packaging and distribution mechanism for VMware Tools. These VMware Tools OSPs are
packaged using native package formats and standards such as rpm and deb.
Note Operating System Specific Packages are not provided for new Linux operating systems
that have open-vm-tools. For information about compatibility support for guest operating
system, see the VMware Compatibility Guide.
Using OSPs provides the following benefits:
n You can use the native update mechanisms of the guest operating system to download,
install, and manage VMware Tools.
n You can upgrade to the latest version of VMware Tools without having to upgrade to the
latest version of vSphere.
n Because VMware Tools OSPs follow the best practices and standards of the specific Linux
operating system, OSPs use standard mechanisms for determining dependencies among
packages. These mechanisms allow you to audit the packages on virtual machines with or
without graphics components.
n You can use standard operating system tools to examine OSPs during VMware Tools
installation. This process allows you to easily determine which components to install and to
verify the validity of the packaging.
Important Use OSPs if you want to use native update mechanisms, rather than vCenter Server,
to manage updates for VMware Tools. If you use an OSP, the VMware Tools status is Guest
Managed on the virtual machine Summary tab. The status Guest Managed means that you
cannot use the vCenter Server to manage VMware Tools and you cannot use vSphere Update
Manager to upgrade VMware Tools.
For more information, go to the VMware Operating System Specific Packages Web site, at
https://www.vmware.com/download/packages.html. For more information on installing OSPs,
see the VMware Tools Installation Guide for Operating System Specific Packages for ESX/ESXi
version 4.1 and later at https://packages.vmware.com/tools/docs/manuals/osp-esx-41-install-
guide.pdf and ESXi versions 5.x and 6.x at https://packages.vmware.com/tools/docs/manuals/
osp-esxi-51-install-guide.pdf
Installing VMware Tools
2
Installing VMware Tools is part of the process of creating a new virtual machine, and upgrading
VMware Tools is part of the process of keeping your virtual machine up to current standards.
Although your guest operating systems can run without VMware Tools, many VMware features
are not available until you install VMware Tools. When you install VMware Tools, the utilities in
the suite enhance the performance of the guest operating system in your virtual machine and
improve the management of your virtual machines.
For information about creating virtual machines, see the documentation for the applicable
VMware product.
The installers for VMware Tools are ISO image files. The CD-ROM in your guest operating system
detects the ISO image file. Each type of guest operating system, including Windows, Linux, and
Mac OS X, has an ISO image file. When you select the command to install or upgrade VMware
Tools, the virtual machine’s first virtual CD-ROM disk drive temporarily connects to the VMware
Tools ISO file for your guest operating system.
If you are using VMware Fusion, Workstation Player, or Workstation Pro, you can use the
Windows Easy Install or Linux Easy Install feature to install VMware Tools as soon as the
operating system is finished installing.
If you are using VMware Fusion, Workstation Player, or Workstation Pro, the most recent
versions of the ISO files are stored on a VMware Web site. When you select the command to
install or upgrade VMware Tools, the VMware product determines whether it has downloaded
the most recent version of the ISO file for the specific operating system. If the latest version was
not downloaded or if no VMware Tools ISO file for that operating system was ever downloaded,
you are prompted to download the file.
n VMware Tools installer from windows.iso automatically detects the windows version. It does
not proceed with the installation on guest operating systems earlier than Windows Vista.
n VMware Tools installer from winPreVista.iso does not proceed with the installation on
Windows Vista and later.
n VMware Tools installer from linux.iso does not proceed with installation on Linux guest
operating system versions earlier than RHEL5, SLES 11, Ubuntu 10.04, and other Linux
distributions with glibc version earlier than 2.5.
n VMware Tools installer from darwinPre15.iso does not proceed with installation on MAC
OS X guest operating systems versions 10.11 or later.
n VMware Tools installer from darwin.iso does not proceed with installation on MAC OS X
guest operating systems versions earlier than 10.11.
Note On ESXi hosts, for guest operating systems that do not have the necessary VMware Tools
ISOs bundled, users must set up the ProductLockerLocation variable on all the VMware Tools ISO
images to manage VMware Tools on these guests. Attempts to upgrade or install without setting
up the ProductLockerLocation variable fails with missing ISO error. For more information, see the
VMware Knowledge base article at https://kb.vmware.com/kb/2129825.
Note AppDefense is not supported for VMware Tools 12.0.0 and later versions.
The installation procedure varies, depending on the operating system. For information about
installing or upgrading VMware Tools on your guest operating systems, see the topic
about upgrading virtual machines in the Virtual Machine Administration Guide. For general
instructions about installing VMware Tools, see the VMware Knowledge base article http://
kb.vmware.com/kb/1014294.
n Disable Access Protection from McAfee Antivirus Virus Scan Console
n Enable Carbon Black Sensor using VMware Tools for Windows
n Enable Salt Minion Using VMware Tools
n Manually Install VMware Tools on Windows
n Manually Install VMware Tools on Windows Arm
n Automatically Install VMware Tools on Multiple Windows Virtual Machines
n Manually Install VMware Tools on Linux
n Manually Install VMware Tools on macOS
n Manually Install VMware Tools on Solaris
n Install Open VM Tools
Disable Access Protection from McAfee Antivirus Virus Scan

Console
You must disable the Access Protection in the McAfee Antivirus Scan Console before installing
VMware Tools in a Windows guest operating system.
Prerequisites
n Power on the virtual machine
n Use McAfee Antivirus in 'Standard' mode
Procedure
1 Install VMware Tools before installing McAfee Antivirus on the Windows guest operating
system.
Note McAfee Antivirus prevents VMware Tools upgrade, if it is run in 'Maximum Protection'
mode.
2 Disable Access Protection from the McAfee Antivirus Virus Scan Console when either
installing or upgrading VMware Tools.
a Select Start > Programs > McAfee > Virus Scan Console.
b Right-click the Access Protection icon in the Tasks window and select Disable from the
pop-up menu.
What to do next
n Install VMware Tools.
n Re-activate Access Protection when your VMware Tools upgrade or installation is complete.
n For more information, see KB 1009965.
Enable Carbon Black Sensor using VMware Tools for

Windows
VMware Tools enables Carbon Black Sensor feature to provide intrinsic security in the virtual
machine. VMware Tools Carbon Black feature comprises of a lightweight VMware Tools system
service Carbon Black Helper (CBHelper) plugin and a Carbon Black launcher (CBLauncher)
application. The CBHelper plugin runs as part of VMware Tools service. When the administrator
enables security in a virtual machine, this CBHelper plugin triggers the CBLauncher, which
downloads the Carbon Black Sensor install package, performs installation, and exits.
VMware Tools enables only the new installation, upgrade, or uninstallation of the CBHelper
plugin and CBLauncher application. For any following VMware Tools uninstall or upgrade, it only
upgrades or removes the VMware Tools system service CBHelper plugin and CBLauncher. It does
not uninstall the Carbon Black installer or Sensor.
Note Carbon Black Sensor is a separate product install from VMware Tools. VMware Tools does
not install the Carbon Black Sensor, but provides support to enable this feature by installing the
CBHelper plugin and CBLauncher application.
Prerequisites
Ensure the following before using this feature:
n vCenter version: 6.7U1 and higher
n VMTools version: 11.2
n Only 64 bit platforms are supported. List of supported platforms:
n Desktop Platforms: Windows 7-SP1, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10
n Server Platforms: Windows Server 2008R2, 2012, 2012R2, 2016, 2019
Procedure
1 Installing VMware Carbon Black Sensor on a virtual machine
n Enable the CBHelper plugin
n VMware Tools Installer:
The VMware CBHelper plugin is present as as part of the default installation setup of
VMware Tools. By default, this plugin is enabled.
n Silent installation:
To add the CBHelper plugin after installation is complete, run the following command:
setup.exe /S /v "/qn REBOOT=R ADDLOCAL=CBHelper"
n Disable the CBHelper plugin:
n VMware Tools Installer:
To disable the CBHelper plugin, select CUSTOM option in the VMware Tools Installer
Setup and remove the the Carbon Black Helper feature from the default settings list.
n Silent installation:
To install of VMware Tools without the CBHelper plugin using silent installation, run
the following command:
setup.exe /S /v "/qn REBOOT=R ADDLOCAL=ALL REMOVE=CBHelper"
2 Overriding the installation of VMware Carbon Black Sensor on a virtual machine
There are two ways to turn off installation of Carbon Black Sensors:
n VMware Tools Configuration File:
The VI administrator can set the CBHelper plugin's poll interval to 0 by updating the
tools.conf. By default, the poll interval value is 180sec.
n Registry Setting:
When a VM administrator (other than the VI administrator) wants to block the Carbon
Black Sensor installation even if the VMware Tools is installed with the Carbon Black
feature, the CBLauncher provide a configuration to override this feature. When this
configuration is set, CBLauncher skips the installation of the Carbon Black Sensor. This
override mechanism provides an ‘opt-out” for VM administrators.
For Windows, this registry setting is as follows,
Registry Path: HKLM\SOFTWARE\VMware Inc.\CbLauncher

n Value Name: DisableCBInstall
n Value Name: DisableCBInstall
n Value Type: REG_DWORD
n Value Data: 1
Operation Result
n 1 – Disable installation: The Carbon Black Sensor will not be installed.
n Any other value/no value/error: Ignored. The Carbon Black Sensor will be installed.
Note A Carbon Black Cloud Workload Plug-in is provided for vCenter Server to secure your
workloads. For more information on how to install, configure, and use this plugin, see VMware
Carbon Black Cloud Workload Guide.
Enable Salt Minion Using VMware Tools

Salt Project is a Python based open-source software for event driven IT automation, remote task
execution and configuration management.
For more information on Salt, see Salt User Guide.
Salt requires a salt-minion to be deployed in the guest. Salt specific guest variables are set on the
host side per VM basis and subsequently read by VMware Tools inside guest. VMware Tools then
downloads the salt bundle and spins up a salt-minion instance inside the guest.
Prerequisites
n Supports only 64 bit OSes.
n For Windows, Windows 8 and later versions are supported.
Note Windows 2008R2 is not supported.
n VMware Tools must be installed with Salt Minion feature. By default, this feature is enabled.
n There are dependencies on installed packages in Linux (like curl and wget)
Procedure
u Host side configuration per VM using guest variables
Host admin manages all the guest variable settings on the host side for a particular VM using
VIM API or vSphere/VC UI.
n n Windows:
VMware Tools Salt Minion feature is installed by default and can be modified in
custom installation.
For VMware Tools to create a salt-minion instance on a particular VM and connect the
salt-minion with the salt-master, host admin must configure and set the guest variable
for that VM.
In vSphere host UI, select a particular VM, right click and edit settings. In the VM
Options tab, select Advanced > Edit Configuration > Add/Delete parameter and set
n guestinfo./vmware.components.salt_minion.desiredstate to present
n guestinfo./vmware.components.salt_minion.args to <custom arguments

to VMware Tools salt-minion setup script>
For example:
guestinfo./vmware.components.salt_minion.desiredstate → present
guestinfo./vmware.components.salt_minion.args → master=1.2.3.4
n Linux:
Host admin must install open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-salt-minion and then set
the guest variable for a particular VM as:
n guestinfo./vmware.components.salt_minion.desiredstate to present
n guestinfo./vmware.components.salt_minion.args to <custom arguments

to VMware Tools salt-minion setup script>
For example:
guestinfo./vmware.components.salt_minion.desiredstate → present
guestinfo./vmware.components.salt_minion.args → master=1.2.3.4 id=12345
n Removing salt-minion
In Windows or Linux, if the host admin sets the guest variable guestinfo./
vmware.components.salt_minion.desiredstate to absent, then VMware Tools
removes the salt-minion instance in the guest VM.
For example:
guestinfo./vmware.components.salt_minion.desiredstate → absent
n Checking the latest status of salt-minion inside the guest
To check the latest status of the salt-minion inside the guest in the vSphere UI, use the
guest variable:
guestinfo.vmware.components.salt_minion.laststatus
u Guest side configuration using tools.conf
The tools.conf file contains the configurations for VMware Tools in an .ini format. This
tool looks for the salt_minion section and uses the configurations defined under that
section. This file is stored at:
Windows - C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Tools\tools.conf
Linux - /etc/vmware-tools/tools.conf
Here is an example of the salt_minion section as defined in tools.conf:
[salt_minion]
master=1.2.3.4
conf_file=/etc/salt/minion
id=dev_minion
Note Only minion config options are available in tools.conf. The desired script action
cannot be obtained from tools.conf.
n Configuring the interval to monitor state change in the guest variables:
VMware Tools periodically polls guest variables for the state changes. Default poll-inteval
is 180s and can be configured in the tools.conf settings.
[componentmgr]
poll-interval=180 (Default value: 180s)
n Enabling and disabling component (salt_minion):
n Guest admin can enable salt_minion by configuring the tools.conf settings.
[componentmgr]
included=salt_minion
n Guest admin can enable all the components by configuring the tools.conf settings.
[componentmgr]
included=all (Default configuration)
n Guest admin can disable all components by configuring the tools.conf settings.
[componentmgr]
included=none
u Installing salt-minion using an install script
n n Linux environment
On Linux systems, the install script svtminion.sh is a bash script with the following
pre-requisites:
n - systemctl
n - curl
n - sha512sum
n - vmtoolsd
n - grep
n - awk
n - sed
n - cut
n - wget
svtminion.sh --help shows the command line options.
Usage:
./svtminion.sh [-c|--clear] [-d|--depend] [-h|--help] [-i|--install]

[-j|--source] [-l|--loglevel] [-m|--minionversion]
[-r|--remove] [-s|--status] [-v|--version]
where ./svtminion.sh [-j|--source], specifies the location to install Salt Minion

from. The default is repo.saltproject.io location.
For example: URL location
http://my_web_server.com/my_salt_onedir
https://my_web_server.com/my_salt_onedir
file:////my_path/my_salt_onedir
//my_path/my_salt_onedir
Note If specific version of Salt Minion is specified, [-m|--minionversion], then its

appended to source. The default is latest.
Here is an example of the installing salt_minion as defined in tools.conf:
[salt_minion]
master=1.2.3.4
conf_file=/etc/salt/minion
id=dev_minion
source=https://my_web_server.com/my_salt_onedir
Note If installing from your private replica of the standard repository location for salt,
use source=https://repo.saltproject.io/salt/vmware-tools-onedir/
n Windows environment
On Windows systems, the install script svtminion.ps1 is a powershell script. The

only prerequisite for Windows is the 'vmtoolsd.exe' binary, which is used to query the
guest variables data.
To get help for this script, run the command svtminion.ps1 -h or Get-Help
svtminion.ps1.
VMware Tools script for managing the Salt minion on a Windows guest is:
.\svtminion.ps1 [-Install] [-MinionVersion <String>] [-Source <String>]

[[-ConfigOptions] <String[]>] [-LogLevel <String>] [-Help] [-Version]
[<CommonParameters>]
where -Source <String> is the URL or path to the repo containing the installers.
This would contain a directory structure similar to that found at the default location:
https://repo.saltproject.io/salt/vmware-tools-onedir/. This can handle most common
protocols like http, https, ftp, unc, local
For example:
PS>svtminion.ps1 -Install
PS>svtminion.ps1 -Install -MinionVersion 3004-1 master=192.168.10.10
id=dev_box
PS>svtminion.ps1 -Install -Source https://my.domain.com/vmtools/salt
Note To see the examples, type get-help .\svtminion.ps1 -examples
For more information, type get-help .\svtminion.ps1 -detailed
For technical information, type get-help .\svtminion.ps1 -full
u Fetching log information
Guest admin can fetch log information related to salt-minion from the following path:
Windows
Log File Location
Log file for checking salt-minion status C:\Windows\Temp\vmware-svtminion-status-

{Timestamp}.log
Log file for installing a salt-minion instance inside the C:\Windows\Temp\vmware-svtminion-install-

guest {TimeStamp}.log
Log file for removing a salt-minion instance inside the C:\Windows\Temp\vmware-svtminion-remove-

guest: {TimeStamp}.log
Log file for checking runtime information after installing C:\salt\var\log\minion log files
or removing a salt-minion instance inside the guest
Linux
Log File Location
Log file for checking salt-minion status /var/log/vmware-svtminion.sh-status-

{Timestamp}.log
Log file for installing a salt-minion instance inside the /var/log/vmware-svtminion.sh-install-

guest {TimeStamp}.log
Log File Location
Log file for removing a salt-minion instance inside the /var/log/vmware-svtminion.sh-remove-

guest: {TimeStamp}.log
Log file for checking runtime information after installing /var/log/salt/minion

or removing a salt-minion instance inside the guest
Manually Install VMware Tools on Windows

You can manually install VMware Tools on a windows virtual machine. The Guest operating
systems that support VMware Tools are Windows 2000 and earlier, Windows XP, Windows
Server 2003, Windows Vista and later versions.
Prerequisites
n Power on the virtual machine.
n Verify that the guest operating system is running.
n 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.
n For Workstation Player, Fusion, and Workstation Pro virtual machines, if you connected the
virtual machine’s virtual CD/DVD drive to an ISO image file when you installed the operating
system, change the setting so that the virtual CD/DVD drive is configured to autodetect a
physical drive.
The autodetect setting enables the virtual machine's first virtual CD/DVD drive to detect and
connect to the VMware Tools ISO file for a VMware Tools installation. This ISO file looks like a
physical CD to your guest operating system. Use the virtual machine settings editor to set the
CD/DVD drive to autodetect a physical drive.
n Log in as an administrator unless you are using an older Windows operating system. Any user
can install VMware Tools in a Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows ME guest operating
system. For operating systems later than these, you must log in as an administrator.
n If you use vSphere and plan to install the Guest Introspection Thin Agent driver, see the
system requirements listed in the vShield Quick Start Guide. The vShield component is not
installed by default. You must perform a custom installation and include that component.
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 If you are using vCenter Server and are performing an upgrade or reinstallation, in the Install/
Upgrade VMware Tools dialog box, select Interactive Tools Installation or Interactive Tools
Upgrade and click OK.
The process starts by mounting the VMware Tools virtual disc on the guest operating system.
3 If you are installing VMware Tools for the first time, click OK on the Install VMware Tools
information page.
If autorun is enabled for the CD-ROM drive on the guest operating system, the VMware Tools
installation wizard starts.
To launch the wizard manually if autorun is not enabled, click Start > Run and enter
D:\setup.exe, where D: is your first virtual CD-ROM drive. Use D:\setup64.exe for 64-bit
Windows guest operating system.
4 Follow the on-screen prompts.
If you use vSphere, to install nondefault components, such as the Guest Introspection Thin
Agent driver, select the Custom setup.
Note If NSX Guest Introspection (GI) drivers are installed and you are using ‘Custom’
installation option in the Tools installer for upgrade, ensure that all installed GI drivers are
upgraded during upgrade.
5 When prompted, reboot the virtual machine.
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.
Manually Install VMware Tools on Windows Arm

You can manually install VMware Tools for Windows Arm on a virtual machine running Windows
10 1709 Arm and later versions. VMware only supports Windows Arm VMs running on VMware
Fusion on Apple silicon.
This VMware Tools Arm functionality is limited to:
n Installer with interactive GUI and command line support
n 3D Graphics
n Multiple monitor
n Resizing fit to window
n Guest clock time synchronization
n Soft power operations
n Desktop events for user switching
n Drag and drop of files between the host and guest
n Copy and paste of files and text between host and guest
n vmrun support for running guest operations
For example, transferring files to and from guest, running programs and scripts in the guest.
For the prerequisites and install steps, refer to the Manually Install VMware Tools on Windows
section for the VMware Fusion product.
Automatically Install VMware Tools on Multiple Windows

Virtual Machines
You can install VMware Tools on multiple virtual machines with Windows guest operating
systems. You can automate this installation and specify the VMware Tools components that you
want to include or exclude in the options.
Prerequisites
n Log in to the guest operating system as an administrator.
n If you plan to use the setup.exe command at the command line to run the VMware
Tools installation, edit the virtual machine settings to connect the virtual CD/DVD drive
to the VMware Tools ISO image. In VMware Workstation Pro and Workstation Player, the
windows.iso file is on the host in the directory where you installed Workstation Pro or
Workstation Player.
n If you plan to use MSI arguments to specify options regarding the silent installation, go to the
Windows Installer page on the MSDN Web site to familiarize yourself with the syntax. You
can use these arguments with the setup.exe command or place them in the vCenter Server
dialog box for automatic installations and upgrades.
n To prevent some VMware Tools components from being installed, familiarize yourself with
the VMware Tools component names so that you can specify which components to exclude.
See Specify VMware Tools Components in Silent Installation .
Procedure
1 In vSphere Client, select the host, cluster, or datacenter and click the Virtual Machine
inventory object.
2 Right-click the virtual machine and select Guest OS > Install VMware Tools.
3 Provide the install or upgrade configuration information.
Specify VMware Tools Components in Silent Installation

You can specify the VMware Tools Components that you want during VMware Tools installation
using the command line options and properties, or during the automatic installation process.
VMware Tools provides various VMware Tools Components. You can install these components
either during a new installation or an upgrade of VMware Tools.
Silent Install - New Install or Upgrade
The command format for a new install or upgrade is:
setup.exe /S /v "/qn msi_args"
The command format to include all customizable features except those specified, using
ADDLOCAL and REMOVE MSI properties is:
setup.exe /S /v "/qn msi_args ADDLOCAL=ALL REMOVE=component"
Note Component name is feature name and is case-sensitive. If you want to remove more than
one component, the feature names must be comma separated.
For example:
n To install all customizable features except the 'Shared Folders' feature, run the command:
setup.exe /S /v "/qn REBOOT=R ADDLOCAL=ALL REMOVE=Hgfs"
n To install all customizable features except the 'Shared Folders', 'File Introspection', 'Network
Introspection', and 'Salt Minion' features, run the command:
setup.exe /S /v "/qn REBOOT=R ADDLOCAL=ALL

REMOVE=Hgfs,FileIntrospection,NetworkIntrospection,SaltMinion"
n The following command shows MSI options and properties to perform a silent installation
with a logging file specified that suppresses rebooting when installation is complete. This
command also installs all components except the shared folders component.
setup.exe /S /v "/qn /l*v ""%TEMP%\vmmsi.log"" REBOOT=R ADDLOCAL=ALL

REMOVE=Hgfs"
Silent Install - Modify Install
After a new install or upgrade, to modify the installed customizable features, you can add or
remove a component using the ADDLOCAL and/or REMOVE MSI properties:
setup.exe /S /v "/qn msi_args ADDLOCAL=component REMOVE=component"
msi_args can be specified as mentioned above for logging and suppressing of reboot. For more
extensive list of msi_args arguments, see Microsoft documentation.
Table 2-1. VMware Tools Visible Core Components (Not customizable)
Feature Name Description
VMCI Virtual Machine Communication Interface (VMCI) driver allows virtual

machines to communicate with the hosts on which they run without using
the network. Developers can write client-server applications to the VMCI
Sock (vsock) interface to make use of the VMCI virtual device.
VMCI driver is installed by default as part of VMware Tools installation.
If the user had disabled this VMCI driver in the setup settings during a
previous installation, VMware Tools automatically re-installs VMCI driver
during the upgrade.
Note From this release onwards, VMCI driver cannot be disabled as the
VMware Tools System service functionality is dependent on this driver.
Other core components installed by default are not visible.
Table 2-2. VMware Tools Customizable Components (Using ADDLOCAL and/or REMOVE MSI
properties) Note: Features available on Windows Arm are noted in the description.
CBHelper Helper to install of Carbon black Sensor on a virtual machine.
Perfmon Utility for WMI performance logging. Enables performance monitoring

between the Guest SDK and the WMI environment.
VmwTimeProvider Time provider for VMware virtual precision clock device.
FileIntrospection The NSX File Introspection driver, vsepflt.sys is the first of the two guest
introspection drivers. You can install it separately, without installing the NSX
Network Introspection driver.
Note This component is dependent on the VMCI driver.
NetworkIntrospection The NSX Network Introspection driver, vnetflt.sys is the second of the
two guest introspection drivers.
Note This component is dependent on the VMCI driver.
VMware Tools 10.2.5 supports vnetWFP driver for Windows 7 and later.
ServiceDiscovery The Service Discovery component enables the discovery of various services
running inside a virtual machine.
Note This user-mode component is dependent on the VMCI driver.
properties) Note: Features available on Windows Arm are noted in the description. (continued)
DeviceHelper The VMware Device Helper component helps to perform a device check and
swap in your virtual machine.
Note This user-mode component is dependent on the VMCI driver.
Hgfs Hgfs is a VMware shared folders driver that allows files to be shared
between your virtual machine and the host computer.
You can use this driver, if you plan to use this virtual machine with VMware
Workstation, Player, or Fusion.
Note
n If you exclude this feature, you cannot share a folder between your
virtual machine and the host system.
n This component is dependent on the VMCI driver.
SVGA The VMware SVGA driver enhances the performance of your virtual video
card.
Note If you exclude this feature, it limits the display capabilities of your
virtual machine.
Note This feature is also available for Windows Arm.
VMXNet The VMware VMXNet networking driver enhances the performance of your
virtual network card.
VMXNet3 The VMware VMXNet3 networking driver enahnces the performance of

your virtual network card (ndis5/ndis6). This is the Next-generation VMware
VMXnet networking driver for virtual machines that use virtual hardware
version 7 and higher.
For more information, see the VMware Knowledge Base article KB 1001805.
VMXNET3 adds several new features, such as multiqueue support (also
known as 'Receive Side Scaling' in Windows), IPv6 offloads, and MSI/MSI-X
interrupt delivery.
VMXNET 3 is not related to VMXNET or VMXNET 2.
Receive Side Scaling is enabled by default.
VMware Tools 10.3.0 adds receive data ring support for Windows VMXNET3
driver.
Virtual hardware version 7 corresponds to ESX/ESXi 4.x compatibility.
PVSCSI The VMware Paravirtual SCSI adapters enhances the performance of your
paravirtual SCSI devices.
EFIFW The EFIFW driver is used for EFI Firmware update.
properties) Note: Features available on Windows Arm are noted in the description. (continued)
MemCtl The Memory Control Driver provides enahnced memory management of the
virtual machine.
You can use this driver, if you plan to use a virtual machine in the vSphere
environment.
Note If you exclude this feature, it hinders the memory management

capabilities of the virtual machine running in a vSphere environment.
Mouse The VMware PS2 Mouse driver enhances the performance of your virtual
PS2 mouse.
Note If you exclude this feature, the mouse performance of your virtual
machine will decrease.
MouseUsb The VMware USB Mouse Driver enhances performance of your USB mouse.
Audio The Audio driver provides audio for your virtual sound card.
Note This Audio driver is for 64-bit Windows Vista and later operating
systems.
VSS The VSS driver is used for creating automatic backups. This driver is used,
if the guest operating system is Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003,
or other newer operating systems. Linux and older Windows operating
systems use the Filesystem Sync driver.
BootCamp The BootCamp driver provides Mac BootCamp support.
SaltMinion Scripts required to set up Salt Minion on a vritual machine.
Manually Install VMware Tools on Linux

You can manually install VMware Tools on a Linux virtual machine using the command line. For
later Linux distributions, use the integrated open-vm-tools version.
For more information about Linux distributions supported by Open VM Tools, see https://
github.com/vmware/open-vm-tools/blob/master/README.md and the VMware Compatibility
Guide at https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php.
VMware Tar Tool for Linux virtual machine is feature-frozen at version 10.3.10, so the tar tools
(linux.iso) included in Workstation Player is 10.3.10 and will not be updated. Due to this change,
the Install/Update/Reinstall VMware Tools menu is disabled for the following Linux virtual
machines:
n Modern Linux distributions not officially supported by tar tools.
n Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and later releases.
n CentOS 8 and later releases.
n Oracle Linux 8 and later releases.
n SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 and later releases.
n Linux kernel version is 4.0 or later, and the version of the installed Open VM Tools is 10.0.0 or
later.
n Linux kernel version is 3.10 or later, and the version of the installed Open VM Tools is 10.3.0 or
later.
For the Linux virtual machines that have Open VM Tools installed but are not in the scope
mentioned in the preceding bullet, Install/Update/Reinstall VMware Tools menu is enabled, so
that you can install bundled tar tools on top of Open VM Tools to get Shared Folder (HGFS)
feature support.
For old Linux virtual machines not supported by Open VM Tools, perform the following steps to
install tar tools.
Prerequisites
n Because the VMware Tools installer is written in Perl, verify that Perl is installed in the guest
operating system.
Procedure
system.
2 In the virtual machine, open a terminal window. Run the mount command with no arguments
to determine whether your Linux distribution automatically mounted the VMware Tools virtual
CD-ROM image.
If the CD-ROM device is mounted, the CD-ROM device and its mount point are listed in a
manner similar to the following output:
/dev/cdrom on /mnt/cdrom type iso9660 (ro,nosuid,nodev)
If the VMware Tools virtual CD-ROM image is not mounted, mount the CD-ROM drive.
a If a mount point directory does not already exist, create it.
mkdir /mnt/cdrom
Some Linux distributions use different mount point names. For example, on some
distributions the mount point is /media/VMware Tools rather than /mnt/cdrom. Modify
the command to reflect the conventions that your distribution uses.
b Mount the CD-ROM drive.
mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
Some Linux distributions use different device names or organize the /dev directory
differently. If your CD-ROM drive is not /dev/cdrom or if the mount point for a CD-ROM
is not /mnt/cdrom, modify the command to reflect the conventions that your distribution
uses.
3 Change to a working directory, for example, /tmp and extract the tar file into this /tmp folder.
cd /tmp
4 Delete any previous vmware-tools-distrib directory before you install VMware Tools.
The location of this directory depends on where you placed it during the previous installation.
Often this directory is placed in /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib.
List the contents of the mount point directory and note the file name of the VMware Tools tar
installer.
ls mount-point
Uncompress the installer.
tar zxpf /mnt/cdrom/VMwareTools-x.x.x-yyyy.tar.gz
The value x.x.x is the product version number, and yyyy is the build number of the product
release.
5 If necessary, unmount the CD-ROM image.
umount /dev/cdrom
If your Linux distribution automatically mounted the CD-ROM, you do not need to unmount
the image.
6 Run the installer and configure VMware Tools as a root user
cd vmware-tools-distrib
sudo ./vmware-install.pl
Follow the prompts to accept the default values, if appropriate for your configuration.
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.
Usually, the vmware-config-tools.pl configuration file runs after the installer file finishes
running. If you attempt to install a tar installation over an RPM installation, or the reverse,
the installer detects the previous installation and must convert the installer database format
before continuing.
Note For newer Linux distributions, users are prompted to choose the integrated open-vm-
tools.
What to do next
documentation.
Manually Install VMware Tools on macOS

You can install or upgrade VMware Tools on a macOS virtual machine using an installer assistant.
If you use VMware Fusion or ESXi on a computer with an Apple label, you can create Mac OS X
Server (10.5 or later) virtual machines and install VMware Tools.
Prerequisites
Procedure
1 Select the menu command to mount and open the VMware Tools virtual disc on the guest
operating system.
VMware Product Menu Command
or Guest OS > Upgrade VMware Tools... and select Interactive Tools
Installation or Interactive Tools Upgrade
2 Open Install VMware Tools on the VMware Tools virtual disc, follow the prompts in the
installer assistant, and click OK.
Results
The virtual machine restarts to have VMware Tools take effect.
Manually Install VMware Tools on Solaris

You can manually install or upgrade VMware Tools on a Solaris virtual machine using the
command line.
Prerequisites
n Because the VMware Tools installer is written in Perl, verify that Perl is installed in the guest
operating system.
Procedure
system.
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
documentation.
Install Open VM Tools

Most Linux distributions include open-vm-tools and some distributions install open-vm-tools
by default.
The open-vm-tools provided by Linux distrubutions meet the need of many users.
Note Different Linux distributions update their version of open-vm-tools at different times.
Users can update their open-vm-tools from the package repository provided by a Linux
distribution. The install instructions vary depending on the package management system used
by a Linux 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.
In general, open-vm-tools is supported for OSs that use three different package management
systems:
n Ubuntu, Debian and Related OSes from this family use apt to install Debian (*.deb) packages
n Red Hat, Fedora and CentOS use dnf or yum to install RPM (*.rpm) packages
n 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 desktop
component 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 automatically
installs 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 OSes
a Ensure that the package index is updated:
sudo apt-get update
b 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
c Otherwise, use the command to install open-vm-tools:
sudo apt-get install open-vm-tools
2 RHEL, Fedora and CentOS
a If the VM has a GUI (X11, and so on), install or upgrade open-vm-tools-desktop:
sudo yum install open-vm-tools-desktop
b Otherwise, install open-vm-tools:
sudo yum install open-vm-tools
3 SLE and openSUSE
a If the VM has a GUI (X11, and so on), install or upgrade open-vm-tools-desktop:
zypper install open-vm-tools-desktop
b Otherwise, install open-vm-tools:
zypper install open-vm-tools
Upgrading VMware Tools
3
You can upgrade VMware Tools manually or you can configure virtual machines to check for
newer versions of VMware Tools and install them.
The guest operating system checks the version of VMware Tools when you power on a virtual
machine. The status bar of your virtual machine displays a message when a new version is
available.
For vSphere virtual machines, when the installed version of VMware Tools is outdated, the status
bar displays the message:
A newer version of Tools is available for this VM
In Windows virtual machines, you can set VMware Tools to notify you when an upgrade is
available. If this notification option is enabled, the VMware Tools icon in the Windows taskbar
includes a yellow caution icon when a VMware Tools upgrade is available.
To install a VMware Tools upgrade, you can use the same procedure that you used for installing
VMware Tools the first time. Upgrading VMware Tools means installing a new version.
For Windows and Linux guest operating systems, you can configure the virtual machine to
automatically upgrade VMware Tools. Although the version check is performed when you power
on the virtual machine, in case of Windows guest operating systems, the automatic upgrade
occurs when you power off or restart the virtual machine. The status bar displays the message
Installing VMware Tools ... when an upgrade is in progress. The procedure is mentioned
below.
Note Upgrading VMware Tools on Windows guest operation systems automatically installs the
SVGA graphics drivers. The SVGA graphics driver allows the sleep mode available in guest OS
power settings to adjust the sleep options. For example, you can use the sleep mode setting
Change when the computer sleeps to configure your guest OS to automatically go to sleep
mode after a certain time or prevent your guest OS from automatically switching to sleep mode
after being idle for some time.
For vSphere virtual machines, you can use one of the following processes to upgrade multiple
virtual machines at the same time.
n Log in to vCenter Server, select a host or cluster, and on the Virtual Machines tab specify the
virtual machines on which to perform a VMware Tools upgrade.
n Use vSphere Lifecycle Manager to perform an orchestrated upgrade of virtual machines at

the folder or data center level.
Some features in a particular release of a VMware product might depend on installing or

upgrading to the version of VMware Tools included in that release. Upgrading to the latest
version of VMware Tools is not always necessary. Newer versions of VMware Tools are
compatible with several host versions. To avoid unnecessary upgrades, evaluate whether the
added features and capabilities are necessary for your environment.
Table 3-1. Virtual Machine Compatibility Options
Compatibility Description
ESXi 8.0 Update 2 This virtual machine (hardware version 21) is compatible with ESXi 8.0 Update 2 and
later.
ESXi 8.0 Update 1 This virtual machine (hardware version 20) is compatible with ESXi 8.0 Update 1 and
ESXi Update 2.
ESXi 8.0 This virtual machine (hardware version 20) is compatible with ESXi 8.0, ESXi 8.0
Update 1, and ESXi 8.0 Update 2.
ESXi 7.0 Update 3 This virtual machine (hardware version 19) is compatible with ESXi 7.0 Update 3, ESXi
8.0, ESXi 8.0 Update 1, and ESXi 8.0 Update 2.
7.0 Update 3, and ESXi 8.0.
ESXi 7.0 Update 1 and later This virtual machine (hardware version 18) is compatible with ESXi 7.0 Update 1, ESXi
7.0 Update 2, ESXi 7.0 Update 3, ESXi 8.0, ESXi 8.0 Update 1, and ESXi 8.0 Update 2.
ESXi 7.0 This virtual machine (hardware version 17) is compatible with ESXi 7.0, ESXi 7.0 Update
1, ESXi 7.0 Update 2, ESXi 7.0 Update 3, ESXi 8.0, ESXi 8.0 Update 1, and ESXi 8.0
Update 2.
6.7 Update 3, ESXi 7.0, ESXi 7.0 Update 1, ESXi 7.0 Update 2, ESXi 7.0 Update 3, ESXi
8.0, ESXi 8.0 Update 1, ESXi 8.0 Update 2.
ESXi 6.7 This virtual machine (hardware version 14) is compatible with ESXi 6.7, ESXi 6.7 Update
2, ESXi 6.7 Update 3, ESXi 7.0, ESXi 7.0 Update 1, ESXi 7.0 Update 2, ESXi 7.0 Update
3, ESXi 8.0, ESXi 8.0 Update 1, and ESXi 8.0 Update 2.
ESXi 6.5 This virtual machine (hardware version 13) is compatible with ESXi 6.5, ESXi 6.7, ESXi
6.7 Update 2, ESXi 6.7 Update 3, ESXi 7.0, ESXi 7.0 Update 1, ESXi 7.0 Update 2, ESXi
7.0 Update 3, ESXi 8.0, ESXi 8.0 Update 1, and ESXi 8.0 Update 2.
For more information, see the VMware Compatibility Guide at http://www.vmware.com/

resources/compatibility.
n Configure Virtual Machines to Automatically Upgrade VMware Tools
n Manually Upgrade VMware Tools in Virtual Machines
n Automatically Upgrade VMware Tools in Virtual Machines
n VMware Tools Installer Logging to Host
Configure Virtual Machines to Automatically Upgrade

VMware Tools
You can configure virtual machines to automatically update VMware Tools.
Note Automatic VMware Tools upgrade is not supported for virtual machines with Solaris or
NetWare guest operating systems.
Prerequisites
n Verify that the virtual machines have a version of VMware Tools shipped with ESX/ESXi 3.5 or
later installed.
n Verify that the virtual machines are hosted on ESX/ESXi 3.5 or later and vCenter Server 3.5 or
later.
n Verify that the virtual machines are running a Linux or Windows guest OS that ESX/ESXi 3.5
or later and vCenter Server 3.5 or later support.
Procedure
1 Right-click the virtual machine and click Edit Settings.
2 Click the VM Options tab and select VMware Tools.
3 Select Check and upgrade VMware Tools before each power on.
4 Click OK to save your changes and close the dialog box.
Results
The next time the virtual machine is powered on, it checks the ESX/ESXi host for a newer version
of VMware Tools. If one is available, it is installed and the guest operating system is restarted (if
required).
Manually Upgrade VMware Tools in Virtual Machines

You can upgrade VMware Tools in one or more virtual machines by using the vSphere Web
Client.
Procedure
1 Start the vSphere Web Client and log in to the vCenter Server.
2 Select the virtual machines.
a Select a datacenter, folder, cluster, resource pool, or host.
b Click the VMs tab.
3 Power on the virtual machines to upgrade.
4 Right-click your selections.
5 Select Guest OS > Install/Upgrade VMware Tools and click OK.
6 Select Interactive Upgrade or Automatic Upgrade and click Upgrade.
7 If you chose the interactive upgrade for a virtual machine with a Linux guest operating
system, reboot the operating system by running the reboot command from a command-line
prompt so that you can use the new network modules.
Note
a This upgrade procedure is not applicable for operating systems that are installed with
OSPs or Open VM Tools
b If NSX Guest Introspection (GI) drivers are installed and you are using ‘Custom’ installation
option in the Tools installer for upgrade, ensure that all installed GI drivers are upgraded
during upgrade.
Results
Virtual machine has upgraded version of VMware Tools.
Automatically Upgrade VMware Tools in Virtual Machines

When you start an automatic upgrade of VMware Tools, you do not need to perform any
operations in the guest operating system that is running on the virtual machine. The automatic
upgrade uninstalls the previous version of VMware Tools, installs the latest version that is
available for your ESXi host.
Automatic VMware Tools upgrade is supported only for virtual machines with Windows guest
operating system.
Prerequisites
The following requirements are for each virtual machine in the upgrade:
Procedure
1 Select Automatic Tools Upgrade.
2 (Optional) In the Advanced Options text box, enter advanced options for the Windows or
Linux guest operating systems.
Option Action
Microsoft Windows Guest Operating For the Windows guest operating system:
Systems n Enter /s /v "/qn" /l
"Microsoft_Windows_location\filename.log" to perform a silent
upgrade of VMware Tools and create a log file in the specified location
on the guest operating system.
Linux Guest Operating Systems For the Linux guest operating system:
n Enter --default to perform a silent upgrade of VMware Tools and
install the bin, lib, and doc files in the default /usr directory.
This is the default behavior.

n Enter --prefix=binary_location,lib_location,doc_location to
perform a silent upgrade of VMware Tools and install thebin, lib, and
doc files in the specified locations.
3 Click OK.
Results
The VMware Tools label on the Summary tab changes to OK.
VMware Tools Installer Logging to Host

When GSS support team collects the vm-support bundle from customers, the installer log files
are also included in it. The installer logs reside in the virtual machine as well as the host. These log
files are critical for diagnosis and triaging of installation issues.
The Windows installer log files are all guest only and go to the %Temp% folder of the user
account which launches the bootstrapper setup application.
The log files generated are:
Install log (vminst.log): Contains VMware controlled components log output.
MSI log (vmmsi.log): Contains Microsoft MSI controlled log output. To enable or disable MSI
logging output, see the Microsoft knowledge base article KB 22330.
Prerequisites
Install the VMware Tools version 11.0.0 and vSphere 7.0 (and later).
Procedure
1 For new installation or uninstallation or upgrade, vmx.log.guest.level option is used to

enable or disable the installer logging to the host.
The allowed values to be set for this option are listed below:
Value Description
vmx.log.guest.level = "off" Logging to host is disabled.

This is the default value.
vmx.log.guest.level = "error" The installer logs vminst.log and vmmsi.log are not sent to the host. Both
the installer logs remain in the virtual machine.
vmx.log.guest.level = The installer logs vminst.log and vmmsi.log are not sent to the host. Both
"warning" the installer logs remain in the virtual machine.
vmx.log.guest.level = "notice" The installer logs vminst.log and vmmsi.log are not sent to the host. Both
the installer logs remain in the virtual machine.
vmx.log.guest.level = "info" The installer log vminst.log is sent to the host but vmmsi.log remains in
the virtual machine.
vmx.log.guest.level = Both the installer logs vminst.log and vmmsi.log are sent to the host.
"verbose"
vmx.log.guest.level = "trivia" Both the installer logs vminst.log and vmmsi.log are sent to the host.
Note Guest admin can use "/mg" or "LOGMODE=G" command line options to control and
suppress logging to the host.
For example:
setup.exe /mg
setup.exe /v "LOGMODE=G"
setup.exe /S /v "/qn LOGMODE=G"
setup.exe /S /mg /v "/qn LOGMODE=G"
2 For auto upgrade, install-vmxGuestLogDisabled is read and parsed instead of

vmxGuestLogDisabled in tools.conf file.
The allowed values to be set for this setting are listed as below:
Value Description
install-vmxGuestLogDisabled = The installer logs are not sent to the host during auto upgrade.
true This is the default value.
install-vmxGuestLogDisabled = The installer logs are sent to the host during auto upgrade.
false
Note These settings go into the logging section. For example:
Under the [logging] group,
[logging]
install-vmxGuestLogDisabled = false
3 vMotion Impact:
a New Host to Old Host:
For VMware Tools 11.0.0 and later versions, before vMotion, logs went to host guest log.
After vMotion, logs stopped going to the host.
For versions earlier to VMware Tools 11.0.0, before vMotion, logs went to guest %TEMP%
folder only. After vMotion, logs go to guest %TEMP% folder only.
b Old Host to New Host:
For VMware Tools 11.0.0 and later versions, before vMotion, logs went to guest %TEMP%
For versions earlier to VMware Tools 11.0.0, before vMotion, logs went to guest %TEMP%
Note vSphere administrator can set the VM option to redirect to host guest log after
vMotion.
Installing and Automatically
Upgrading VMware Tools
Component
4
Guest administrator can control the automatic upgrade, installation or removal of a component
using the configuration options provided in VMware Tools Configuration file (tools.conf).
Procedure
1 Automatic Upgrade: The guest admin can control automatic upgrade using the allow-
upgrade option.
The allow-upgrade option controls whether automatic upgrades (or re-installations) are
allowed or not. This option has the values:
n allow-upgrade=true: Enables automatic upgrade of VMware Tools.
n allow-upgrade=false: Disables automatic upgrade of VMware Tools.
Note The allow-upgrade option affects all the auto upgradable tools.
2 Add or Remove a Feature: The guest admin can control adding or removing a feature from
VMware Tools using the following options:
n allow-add-feature: This option controls whether adding a feature from VMware Tools
is allowed or not. This option has the values:
n allow-add-feature=true: Enables adding a feature from VMware Tools.
n allow-add-feature=false: Disables adding a feature from VMware Tools.
n allow-remove-feature: This option controls whether removing a feature from VMware

Tools is allowed or not. This option has the values:
n allow-remove-feature=true: Enables removing a feature from VMware Tools.
n allow-remove-feature=false: Disables removing a feature from VMware Tools.
Note
a The allow-add-feature and allow-remove-feature options affect Windows tools
only.
b If the guest admin disables the automatic upgrade option (allow-upgrade=false),

the feature modification options (allow-add-feature and allow-remove-feature) get
disabled as well.
Configuring VMware Tools
Components 5
VMware Tools provides drivers and services that enhance the performance of virtual machines
and make several vSphere features easy to use. When VMware Tools is installed, you can
configure many of these utilities and change their characteristics.
You can use one of the following methods to configure VMware Tools.
n The command-line configuration utility in the guest operating system. You can modify
VMware Tools settings, shrink virtual disks, and connect and disconnect virtual devices.
n Custom scripts.
n Menu commands and dialog boxes.
n By editing the configuration file tools.conf
For information about installing and configuring VMware Tools in other VMware products,
see the documentation for your product. For information about VMware Tools in hosts
that are provisioned with vSphere Auto Deploy, see VMware Knowledge Base article http://
kb.vmware.com/kb/2004018.
n Using VMware Tools Configuration File
n Using Custom VMware Tools Scripts
n Using VMware Tools Configuration Utility
Using VMware Tools Configuration File

VMware Tools uses a configuration file called tools.conf to configure different operations such
as logging, upgrade, guest info, and so on.
Configuration File Location

Administrators can configure VMware Tools by editing this tools.conf file.
For example: Right click Start > All Programs > Accessories > Notepad and select Run as
administrator.
Note
n If the configuration file does not exist, you can create it.
n The Application Data folder is hidden.
n The Program Data folder is hidden.
n There is no need to restart the tools service when the file is edited. The tools service will
check this file every 5 seconds (by default) for changes and apply them.
The table provides the location of configuration file for various Guest OSs:
Guest OS Path [1]
Windows XP, Windows Server 2000, and Windows Server C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application
2003 Data\VMware\VMware Tools\tools.conf [2]
Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 [3] C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Tools\tools.conf
[4]
Linux, Solaris and FreeBSD /etc/vmware-tools/tools.conf
FreeBSD with open-vm-tools 10.1.x or later /usr/local/share/vmware-tools/tools.conf
Mac OS X /Library/Application Support/VMware Tools/

tools.conf
Example Configuration File

VMware Tools installs an example configuration file in the same directory as the location for
tools.conf. This file lists the available options with possible values but commented out (with a
leading '#' character), together with a description. If you want to change the options, uncomment
them and copy this file to tools.conf, or copy parts of it into the tools.conf file.
Configure Network Interface Information

You can configure Network Interface information using the tools.conf configuration option.
Exclude Specific Interfaces from GuestInfo

To exclude specific interfaces from GuestInfo, set the option exclude-nics to a comma
separated list of network interfaces.
Example
[guestinfo]
exclude-nics=docker*,veth*
The configuration will exclude all interfaces with the names matching the patterns docker* and
veth* from GuestInfo.
Set Primary and Low Priority Interfaces

The options primary-nicsand low-priority-nics accept a list of comma separated patterns for
interface names which are considered as primary or low priority network interfaces. This will
cause the interface information to be put on top of the list for primary interfaces, and to the
bottom for low priority interfaces.
Example
[guestinfo]
primary-nics=eth1
The configuration ensures that the IP address for eth1 will be sorted on top of the list of IP
addresses.
Example
[guestinfo]
primary-nics=eth*
This configuration ensures that any address in the interfaces matching eth* is sorted on top of
the list of IP addresses.
Example
[guestinfo]
low-priority-nics=eth*
This configuration ensures that any address in the interfaces matching eth* is sorted at the
bottom of the list of IP addresses.
Note After the limit of the number of interfaces to be reported is reached, low priority interfaces
are the first to be skipped.
Exclude Specific File Systems from Quiesced Snapshots

You can exclude specific file systems from a quiesced snapshot operation.
In Linux guest operating systems, the configuration setting excludedFileSystems allows file
systems to be excluded from a quiesced snapshot. This setting, if specified, is listed in the section
of vmbackup of the tools.conf file. The value of excludedFileSystems is a comma-separated list
of glob-style patterns specifying the file systems to be excluded from quiesced snapshots. The
patterns may use '*' (wildcard) to represent any string of characters and '?" (joker) to represent
any single character. Note that the characters represented by these patters, '*' and '?" may
include any characters, including '/'
Procedure
1 Open the tools.conf file from /etc/vmware-tools/tools.conf in your Linux guest

operating system.
2 Add a vmbackup section in the file, if it does not exist.
[vmbackup]
3 In the vmbackup section, set excludedFileSystems to the preferred list of patterns.
excludedFileSystems = <list of patterns>
Example
For example, this setting excludes the file system mounted at /fs1 from a quiesced snapshot
operation.
[vmbackup]
excludedFileSystems = /fs1
As another example, this setting excludes all the file systems whose mount points start with /fs
or /dev from a quiesced snapshot operation.
[vmbackup]
excludedFileSystems = /fs*,/dev/*
Security Considerations to Configure VMware Tools

You must ensure certain data security considerations while configuring VMware Tools as VMware
Tools configuration settings might expose some security threats or risks.
There are many kind of possible security threats while configuring VMware Tools components or
features.
For example, VMware Tools enables you to connect virtual devices such as serial and parallel
ports to virtual machines. A connected device might be a potential channel of attack. To harden a
virtual machine and reduce security risks as much as possible, disable the VMware Tools features
that might be vulnerable to security threats.
Note For complete information about securely deploying VMware vSphere in a production
environment, including security recommendations for hosts, virtual machines, management
components, and a networking infrastructure, see the vSphere Hardening Guide. VMware Tools
settings relate only to the virtual machine aspect of a deployment.
Virtual machines are encapsulated in a small number of files. Of these, the configuration file (.vmx
file) governs the performance of the virtual hardware and other settings. You can use several
methods to see and modify the configuration settings:
n Use the vSphere Web Client to edit virtual machine settings. In the vSphere Web Client,
editing these configuration parameters is an advanced option in the virtual machine Edit
Settings dialog box.
n Use the vSphere Host Client to edit virtual machine settings. In the vSphere Host Client,
editing these configuration parameters is an advanced option in the virtual machine Edit
Settings dialog box.
n Use a vSphere API-based tool, such as Power CLI, to view and modify .vmx parameters.
After you edit a setting, the change does not take effect until you restart the virtual machine.
You can eliminate several potential threats by setting parameters appropriately in the
corresponding VMware Tools parameters to set in the virtual machine's .vmx file. The defaults for
many of these parameters are already set to protect virtual machines from these threats.
Threats: Unprivileged User Account Access

Copy and paste
By default, the ability to copy and paste text, graphics, and files is disabled, as is the ability
to drag and drop files. When this option is enabled, you can copy and paste rich text, and
depending on the VMware product, graphics and files from your clipboard to the guest
operating system in a virtual machine. That is, when the console window of a virtual machine
gains focus, nonprivileged users and processes running in the virtual machine can access the
clipboard on the computer where the console window is running. To avoid risks associated
with this feature, retain the following .vmx settings, which disable copying and pasting:
isolation.tools.copy.disable = "TRUE"
isolation.tools.paste.disable = "TRUE"
Threats: Virtual Devices

Connecting and modifying devices
By default, the ability to connect and disconnect devices is disabled. When this feature is
enabled, users and processes without root or administrator privileges can connect devices
such as network adapters and CD-ROM drives, and they can modify device settings. That
is, a user can connect a disconnected CD-ROM drive and access sensitive information on
the media that is in the drive. A user can also disconnect a network adapter to isolate
the virtual machine from its network, which is a denial of service. To avoid risks associated
with this feature, retain the following .vmx settings, which disable the ability to connect and
disconnect devices or to modify device settings:
isolation.device.connectable.disable = "TRUE"
isolation.device.edit.disable = "TRUE"
Threats: Virtual Machine Information Flow

VMX file size
By default the configuration file is limited to a size of 1 MB because uncontrolled size for
the file can lead to a denial of service if the datastore runs out of disk space. Informational
messages are sometimes sent from the virtual machine to the .vmx file. These setinfo
messages define virtual machine characteristics or identifiers by writing name-value pairs

to the file. You might need to increase the size of the file if large amounts of custom
information must be stored in the file. The property name is tools.setInfo.sizeLimit,
and you specify the value in kilobytes. Retain the following .vmx setting:
tools.setInfo.sizeLimit = "1048576"
Sending performance counters into PerfMon
You can integrate virtual machine performance counters for CPU and memory into PerfMon
for Linux and Microsoft Windows guest operating systems. This provides detailed information
about the physical host available to the guest operating system. A malicious user could
potentially use this information to perform further attacks on the host. By default this feature
is disabled. Retain the following .vmx setting to prevent host information from being sent to
the virtual machine:
tools.guestlib.enableHostInfo = "FALSE"
This setting blocks some but not all metrics. If you set this property to FALSE, the following
metrics are blocked:
n GUESTLIB_HOST_CPU_NUM_CORES
n GUESTLIB_HOST_CPU_USED_MS
n GUESTLIB_HOST_MEM_SWAPPED_MB
n GUESTLIB_HOST_MEM_SHARED_MB
n GUESTLIB_HOST_MEM_USED_MB
n GUESTLIB_HOST_MEM_PHYS_MB
n GUESTLIB_HOST_MEM_PHYS_FREE_MB
n GUESTLIB_HOST_MEM_KERN_OVHD_MB
n GUESTLIB_HOST_MEM_MAPPED_MB
n GUESTLIB_HOST_MEM_UNMAPPED_MB
Features not exposed in vSphere that could cause vulnerabilities
Because VMware virtual machines run in many VMware products in addition to vSphere,
some virtual machine parameters do not apply in a vSphere environment. Although these
features do not appear in vSphere user interfaces, disabling them reduces the number of
vectors through which a guest operating system could access a host. Use the following .vmx
setting to disable these features:
isolation.tools.unity.push.update.disable = "TRUE"
isolation.tools.ghi.launchmenu.change = "TRUE"
isolation.tools.ghi.autologon.disable = "TRUE"
isolation.tools.hgfsServerSet.disable = "TRUE"
isolation.tools.memSchedFakeSampleStats.disable = "TRUE"
isolation.tools.getCreds.disable = "TRUE"
Using Custom VMware Tools Scripts

You can associate custom VMware Tools scripts with power operations.
When VMware Tools is installed, one or more default scripts run on the guest whenever you
change the power state of the virtual machine. You change the power state by using menu
commands or by clicking the Suspend, Resume, Power On, and Power Off buttons. For example,
when you power off a virtual machine, by default the poweroff-vm-default script runs.
Default VMware Tools Scripts

VMware Tools includes one or more default scripts for each power state. The default script
behavior partially depends on the guest operating system.
Microsoft Windows Guest Operating Systems

For most of the Microsoft's Windows guest operating systems, the default script for suspending
a virtual machine releases the IP address of the virtual machine. The default script for resuming a
virtual machine renews the IP address of the virtual machine. This behavior affects only the virtual
machines configured to use DHCP.
On Windows guest operating systems, the default scripts are located in the Program
Files\VMware\VMware Tools folder.
Note You cannot run scripts on NetWare, Windows NT, Me, Windows 98, and Windows 95
guest operating systems.
Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, and Free BSD Guest Operating Systems

On most Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, and FreeBSD guest operating systems, the default script that
runs when you suspend a virtual machine stops networking for the virtual machine. The default
script that runs when you resume a virtual machine starts networking for the virtual machine.
On Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD guest operating systems, the default scripts are located in
the /etc/vmware-tools directory. On Mac OS X operating systems the default scripts are
located in the /Library/Application Support/VMware Tools directory.
Table 5-1. Default VMware Tools Scripts
Script Name Description
poweroff-vm-default Runs when the virtual machine is being powered off or

reset.
Has no effect on networking for the virtual machine.
poweron-vm-default Runs when the virtual machine is being powered on rather

than resumed.
Also runs after virtual machine restarts.
Has no effect on networking for the virtual machine.
resume-vm-default Runs when the virtual machine is resumed after it was

suspended.
On Windows guest operating systems, if the virtual
machine is configured to use DHCP, this script renews the
IP address of the virtual machine.
On Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, and FreeBSD guest operating
systems, this script starts networking for the virtual
machine.
suspend-vm-default Runs when the virtual machine is being suspended.

On Windows guest operating systems, if the virtual
machine is configured to use DHCP, this script releases
the IP address of the virtual machine.
On Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, and FreeBSD , this script
stops networking for the virtual machine.
For information about how to configure power operations, see the documentation for the
VMware product you are using.
Custom VMware Tools Scripts for Windows

For Windows guest operating systems, you can write scripts to automate guest operating
system operations when you change the power state of a virtual machine.
For Windows guest operating systems, you can write new scripts or modify default scripts, save
them with new names, and configure VMware Tools to use your custom script instead of the
default script.
Scripts are run by the VMware Tools service, or daemon (vmtoolsd). Because vmtoolsd is
run as System on Windows, the scripts are run in a separate session from the session of the
logged-in user. The VMware Tools daemon does not detect desktop sessions, which means that
it cannot display graphical applications. Do not attempt to use custom scripts to display graphical
applications.
Prerequisites
n Familiarize yourself with the default VMware Tools scripts. See Default VMware Tools
Scripts .
n If you plan to script commands and need to know what the exit codes are, see Common Exit
Codes.
Procedure
1 Write a new script or modify default scripts and save them as .bat files with new names.
The default scripts for power-on and power-off operations are placeholders only. These
scripts are located in the Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools directory.
The scripts for suspend and resume operations contain a line that releases or renews the IP
address for the virtual machine. You must add this line first when you write custom scripts for
these operations.
Default Script Required IP Address Line
suspend @%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\ipconfig /release
resume @%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\ipconfig /renew
2 Open a command prompt in the guest operating system.
3 Change directories to the VMware Tools installation directory.
The default installation directory is C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools.
4 Type the command to enable the script.
VMwareToolboxCmd.exe script script-name enable
5 Type the command to use the custom script that you created.
VMwareToolboxCmd.exe script script-name set script-path
For script-path, use the full path to the file, such as C:\Temp\poweron-my-vm.bat.
6 Type the command to verify that the custom script that you specified is now being used.
VMwareToolboxCmd.exe script script-name current
Results
The VMware Tools service runs the script whenever the specified power operation occurs.
Custom VMware Tools Scripts for Multiple OSs Except Windows

For Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, and FreeBSD guest operating systems, you can write scripts to
automate guest operating system operations when you change the power state of a virtual
machine.
For Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, and FreeBSD guests, you can write scripts and place them in a
certain directory, and then VMware Tools runs your scripts in addition to the default scripts. For
power-on and resume operations, the default scripts run before the custom scripts. For suspend
and power-off, the default scripts run after the custom scripts. This way, VMware Tools stops
services only after the custom scripts finish their work, and restores the same services before the
custom scripts attempt to use the services.)
Scripts are run by the VMware Tools service, or daemon (vmtoolsd). Because vmtoolsd is run as
root on Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD, the scripts are run in a separate session from the session of
the logged-in user. The VMware Tools daemon does not detect desktop sessions, which means
that it cannot display graphical applications. Do not attempt to use custom scripts to display
graphical applications.
Prerequisites
n Familiarize yourself with the default VMware Tools scripts. See Default VMware Tools
Scripts .
n On Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, and FreeBSD guest operating systems, if you plan to test, edit,
or disable the running of a script, log in as root.
Codes.
Procedure
1 Log in to the guest operating system as root.
2 Write the custom scripts and place them in the correct directory, as instructed by the
comments in the default script files for each power operation.
Guest Operating System Directory
Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD /etc/vmware-tools
Mac OS X /Library/Application Support/VMware Tools
Do not make changes to the default scripts.
Results
The VMware Tools service runs the script whenever the specified power operation occurs.
Disable VMware Tools Script

The default scripts for suspending and resuming a virtual machine are interdependent. If you
disable the script for one of these actions, you must also disable the script for the other action.
Prerequisites
Log in as root on Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD guest operating systems, to test, edit, or disable a
script.
Procedure
1 Open a command prompt or terminal in the guest operating system.
2 Change to the VMware Tools installation directory.
Operating System Default Path
Windows C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools
Linux and Solaris /usr/sbin
FreeBSD /usr/local/sbin
3 Type the command to disable the script.
utility-name script script-name disable
Option Action
utility-name On Windows Use VMwareToolboxCmd.exe.
utility-name On Linux, Solaris, and Use vmware-toolbox-cmd.

FreeBSD
utility-name On MAC OS Use vmware-tools-cli.
script-name Use power, resume, suspend, or shutdown.
4 (Optional) If you disabled the script for suspending a virtual machine, repeat this procedure
for resuming the virtual machine.
5 (Optional) If you disabled the script for resuming a virtual machine, also disable the script for
suspending the virtual machine.
Using VMware Tools Configuration Utility

The VMware Tools configuration utility is a command-line interface that you can use in the guest
operating system to modify VMware Tools settings, shrink virtual disks, connect and disconnect
virtual devices.
The VMware Tools configuration utility provides a command-line interface for functionality that
was previously available only in the VMware Tools control panel. The name of this program
depends on the guest operating system.
Table 5-2. VMware Tools Configuration Utilities for Guest Operating Systems
Guest Operating System Utility
Windows VMwareToolboxCmd.exe
Mac OS X vmware-tools-cli
Because the VMware Tools installer does not modify
any PATH environment variables on Mac OS X operating
systems, you must type ./ before the command.
Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris vmware-toolbox-cmd
Use the utility's help command to display complete usage information and syntax.
The VMware Tools configuration utility is included in the following VMware products:
n VMware vSphere 4.1 and later
n VMware Workstation 7.0 and later
n VMware Fusion 3.0 and later
n VMware Player 3.0 and later
n VMware ACE 2.6 and later
Enable Periodic Time Synchronization

When you enable periodic time synchronization, VMware Tools sets the time of the guest
operating system same as the host time.
After time synchronization occurs, VMware Tools checks once every minute to determine
whether the clocks on the guest and host operating systems still match. If not, the clock on
the guest operating system is synchronized to match the clock on the host.
If the clock on the guest operating system falls behind the clock on the host, VMware Tools
moves the clock on the guest forward to match the clock on the host. If the clock on the guest
operating system is ahead of the clock on the host, VMware Tools causes the clock on the guest
to run more slowly until the clocks are synchronized.
Native time synchronization software, such as Network Time Protocol (NTP) for Linux and the
Mac OS X, or Microsoft Windows Time Service (Win32Time) for Windows, is typically more
accurate than VMware Tools periodic time synchronization. Use only one form of periodic time
synchronization in your guests. If you are using native time synchronization software, disable
VMware Tools periodic time synchronization.
Regardless of whether you turn on VMware Tools periodic time synchronization, time
synchronization occurs after certain operations:
n When you start the VMware Tools daemon, such as during a reboot or power on operation
n When you resume a virtual machine from a suspend operation
n After you revert to a snapshot
n After you shrink a disk
When the operating system starts or restarts, and when you first turn on periodic time
synchronization, if the time.synchronize.tools.startup.backward parameter is not enabled
in the .vmx file, the guest clock is set to forward. For other events, synchronization is forward in
time.
To disable time synchronization completely, you must edit the configuration file (.vmx file) of the
virtual machine and set several synchronization properties to FALSE.
Prerequisites
n Disable other periodic time synchronization mechanisms. For example, some guests might
have NTP or Win32Time clock synchronization turned on by default.
n If you plan to script the commands used in this procedure and need to know what the exit
codes are, see Common Exit Codes.
Note Mac OS X guest operating systems use NTP and do not become out of sync with the
host. For Mac OS X guest operating systems, there is no need to turn on VMware Tools time
synchronization.
Procedure
3 Type the command to determine whether time synchronization is enabled.
utility-name timesync status
For utility-name use the guest-specific program name.
Operating System Program Name
Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD vmware-toolbox-cmd
MAC OS X vmware-tools-cli
4 Type the command to enable or disable periodic time synchronization.
utility-name timesync subcommand
For subcommand, use enable or disable.
Results
The VMware Tools service enables or disables periodic time synchronization, as you specified.
Disabling periodic time synchronization does not disable all VMware Tools time synchronization.
What to do next
If you need to keep a fictitious time in a virtual machine, such that the clock in the guest
operating system is never synchronized with that on the host, disable time synchronization
completely for the guest operating system.
Disable Periodic Time Synchronization

A virtual machine occasionally synchronizes time with the host even if you do not turn on
periodic time synchronization. To completely disable time synchronization, you must set some
properties in the virtual machine configuration file.
Prerequisites
Power off the virtual machine.
Procedure
1 Open the configuration (.vmx) file of the virtual machine in a text editor.
2 Add lines for the time synchronization properties and set the properties to FALSE.
tools.syncTime = "FALSE"
time.synchronize.continue = "FALSE"
time.synchronize.restore = "FALSE"
time.synchronize.resume.disk = "FALSE"
time.synchronize.shrink = "FALSE"
time.synchronize.tools.startup = "FALSE"
3 Save and close the file.
What to do next
Power on the virtual machine.
Connect or Disconnect a Virtual Device

You can connect and disconnect removable devices such as floppy drives, DVD/CD-ROM drives,
ISO images, USB devices, sound adapters, and network adapters.
n Some devices cannot be shared between the host and guest operating systems or between
two guest operating systems. For example, only one virtual machine or the host can access
the physical CD-ROM drive at any one time.
n The controls for connecting and disconnecting devices might not be available, depending on
whether your system administrator has enabled them.
You can run the configuration utility to connect and disconnect virtual devices. For security
reasons, this ability is disabled by default. To connect or disconnect devices, you must first
change the settings in the configuration file.
Prerequisites
If you plan to script commands to connect or disconnect a virtual device, and for the exit codes
are, see Common Exit Codes.
Procedure
1 Configure the virtual machine to allow devices to connect or disconnect.
a Edit the configuration (.vmx) file of the virtual machine with a text editor.
b If the following properties are not listed in the file, add them and set them to FALSE.
isolation.device.connectable.disable = "FALSE"
isolation.device.edit.disable = "FALSE"
c Save and close the file.
4 Type utility-name device list to list available devices.
For utility-name, use the guest-specific application name.
Operating System Utility Name
Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD vmware-toolbox-cmd
Mac OS X vmware-tools-cli
5 (Optional) Type the command to determine whether a device is connected.
utility-name device status device-name
For device-name, use one of the names displayed when you used the list subcommand.
6 Type the command to connect or disconnect the device.
utility-name device device-name subcommand
Option Action
device-name Use one of the names displayed when you used the list subcommand.
subcommand Use enable or disable.
Results
The device is connected or disconnected, as you specified.
View Virtual Machine Status Information

You can view information about host time and CPU speed. For virtual machines hosted in a
vSphere environment, you can view additional information about memory and CPU reservations
and limits.
Prerequisites
n Determine the status information to display. See Display Status Information.
Codes.
Procedure
3 Type the command to display the status information.
utility-name stat subcommand
Option Action
utility-name (On Windows) Use VMwareToolboxCmd.exe.
utility-name (On Linux, Solaris, and Use vmware-toolbox-cmd.

FreeBSD)
utility-name (On Mac OS X) Use vmware-tools-cli.
subcommand Use hosttime or, speed, one of the subcommands available for virtual
machines hosted in a vSphere environment.
Display Status Information

When a virtual machine is running on an ESXi host, you can use the vmware-toolbox-cmd
help stat command to display information such as host time and CPU speed. Additional
subcommands are available for virtual machines in a vSphere environment.
Table 5-3. Subcommands for the stat Command
Subcommand Name Description
hosttime Displays the date and time on the host.
speed Displays the CPU speed, in MHz.
balloon Displays the amount of memory that is currently

reclaimed from the virtual machine through ballooning, in
megabytes.
swap Displays the current amount of memory swapped out to

the virtual machine's swap file, in megabytes.
memlimit Displays memory limit information, in megabytes.
memres Displays memory reservation information, in megabytes.
cpures Displays CPU reservation information, in MHz.
cpulimit Displays CPU limit information, in MHz.
sessionid Displays the current session ID.
Common Exit Codes

You can use exit codes to integrate the VMware Tools configuration utility commands with a
scripting tool.
The following table lists the common error codes defined in toolbox-cmd. Each subcommand
may return other Windows or Linux error codes.
Table 5-4. Exit Codes
Code Number Applicable Command Description
0 All commands The command was successful.
1 All commands A error occurred.

For the shrink command, 1 indicates that although
shrinking is enabled, the shrink command cannot be
carried out.
64 All commands The command-line argument is not valid (EX_USAGE).
69 upgrade For the device command, 69 indicates that the specified

timesync device does not exist. Use the list subcommand to
config display valid names of devices.
device For the stat command, 69 indicates that the
stat program could not communicate with the host

(EX_UNAVAILABLE).
shrink
70 globalconf There is an internal software error (EX_SOFTWARE).

gueststore
71 Not used There is a system error (EX_OSERR).
72 device A critical OS file is missing (EX_OSFILE).

shrink
script
75 upgrade The host does not support the query, perhaps because
stat the host is not an ESX/ESXi host (EX_TEMPFAIL).
shrink
script
config
globalconf
logging
device
77 script Permission error occurred (EX_NOPERM).

disk
upgrade
globalconf
logging
info
config
130 Shrink SIGNT received (VM_EX_INTERRUPT).
Query Information using GuestInfo Variable

You can use the 'guestinfo' variable to query information such as version description, version
string, build number, and so on.
The following table list down the 'guestinfo' variables to query information:
Table 5-5. VMware Tools 'guestinfo' Variables
Command Description
Windows Guest: Reports the version description.

vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.description"
rpctool.exe "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.description"
Linux Guest:
vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.description"
vmware-rpctool "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.description"
Windows Guest: Reports the version string.

vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get
guestinfo.vmtools.versionString"
rpctool.exe "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.versionString"
Linux Guest:
vmware-rpctool "info-get
Windows Guest: Reports the version number.

guestinfo.vmtools.versionNumber"
rpctool.exe "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.versionNumber"
Linux Guest:
vmware-rpctool "info-get
Windows Guest: Reports the build number.

vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.buildNumber"
rpctool.exe "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.buildNumber"
Linux Guest:
vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.buildNumber"
vmware-rpctool "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.buildNumber"
Windows Guest: Reports the error code of last VMware Tools

vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.toolsInstallErrCode" installation.
rpctool.exe "info-get guestinfo.toolsInstallErrCode"
Note VMware Tools installation and upgrade
Linux Guest: on Windows often requires a reboot the
vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.toolsInstallErrCode" guest operating system for the changes
vmware-rpctool "info-get guestinfo.toolsInstallErrCode" to take effect. If a reboot is required but
has not occurred, the guestinfo variable
guestinfo.toolsInstallErrCode is set to
3010.
Table 5-5. VMware Tools 'guestinfo' Variables (continued)
Command Description
Windows Guest: Reports the running version of the driver.

vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.driver.[driver For example:
name].version" vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get
rpctool.exe "info-get guestinfo.driver.[driver guestinfo.driver.pvscsi.version"
name].version" returns 1.3.10.0
Linux Guest:
vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.driver.[driver
name].version"
vmware-rpctool "info-get guestinfo.driver.[driver
name].version"
Windows Guest: Reports the IP address of Guest OS.

vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.ip"
rpctool.exe "info-get guestinfo.ip"
Linux Guest:
vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.ip"
vmware-rpctool "info-get guestinfo.ip"
Windows Guest: Reports information about applications that

vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.appInfo" are running inside the guest.
rpctool.exe "info-get guestinfo.appInfo"
Linux Guest:
vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.appInfo"
vmware-rpctool "info-get guestinfo.appInfo"
For customized variables, you can use the command:
vmtoolsd --cmd "info-set guestinfo.foo bar
Configure appInfo
The appInfo plug-in collects information about applications running inside the guest and
publishes that information to the management layers. appInfo is installed by default as a part
of VMware Tools installation in a virtual machine (VM).
appInfo can be managed (enabled or disabled) at both VM and Host levels.
Using the VMware Tools Configuration File at VM Level

The appInfo plug-in collects the information about running applications inside the guest and
publishes the information to a guest variable. For each application running inside the guest,
the name and version information is captured and published by the plug-in. This application
information is collected by default.
Procedure
1 Retrieving the data: The data collected by appInfo plug-in is retrieved as follows:
n From inside the guest
Linux guest
n vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestnfo.appInfo"
n vmware-rpctool "info-get guestinfo.appInfo"
Windows guest
n rpctool.exe "info-get guestinfo.appInfo"
2 Changing the poll-interval: The appInfo plug-in captures the information in every 30 minutes
by default.
Note The default value is changed to '6 hours' in VMware Tools 11.1.0.
Guest admin can configure this poll-interval at anytime as follows:
n Linux
vmware-toolbox-cmd config set appinfo poll-interval <new value in

seconds>
n Windows
VMwareToolboxCmd.exe config set appinfo poll-interval <new value in

seconds>
3 Disabling the appInfo plugin: Guest admin can disable the appInfo plug-in as follows:
n Linux guest
vmware-toolbox-cmd config set appinfo disabled true or
vmware-toolbox-cmd config set appinfo poll-interval 0
n Windows guest
VMwareToolboxCmd.exe config set appinfo disabled true or
VMwareToolboxCmd.exe config set appinfo poll-interval 0
Using ESXCLI plugin at Host Level

In ESXi 7.0 Update 1, a new plugin is added in the ESXCLI under 'vm' namespace to enable or
disable appinfo feature at the host level. By default, this feature is enabled at the ESXi host.
This plugin provides two command options at host level:
Prerequisites
Install ESXi version 7.0 Update 1 to use this feature.
Procedure
u get option: Queries the configstore and returns the current state of the appinfo feature.
esxcli vm appinfo get
u set option: Updates the configstore and instantly notifies all the running virtual machines that
the feature state is modified.
n Enabling the appinfo feature at host:
esxcli vm appinfo set --enabled true
--enabled is a mandatory option for set command.
Valid values for enabling the appinfo feature are: "1", "yes", "y", "true", "True",
"t", "T"
n Disabling the appinfo feature at host:
esxcli vm appinfo set --enabled false
--enabled is a mandatory option for set command.
Valid values for enabling the appinfo feature are: "0", "no", "n", "false",
"False", "f", "F"
Note This plugin can also be invoked by:
a Using a PowerCLI script to enable or disable the appinfo feature at the host, cluster, and
datacenter levels. For details on its usage with examples, refer to KB 81033.
b Using /bin/localcli utility on ESXi host. However, /bin/localcli can only be invoked
locally and cannot be invoked remotely.
Configure ContainerInfo for Linux

The containerinfo plugin gathers the list of running containers inside the Linux guest.
Procedure
1 Retrieving data: For Linux guest, the data collected by containerinfo plugin is retrieved as
follows:
vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.containerinfo"
2 Changing poll-interval: For Linux guest, the containerinfo plugin captures information in
every 6 hours by default.
Guest admin can configure this poll-interval at anytime as follows:
vmware-toolbox-cmd config set containerinfo poll-interval <new value in

seconds>
To revert the containerinfo poll-interval to default value, run the following command:
vmware-toolbox-cmd config remove containerinfo poll-interval
3 Querying container information: For Linux guest, the number of containers queried per
namespace can be limited to a value as follows:
vmware-toolbox-cmd config set containerinfo max-containers <value>
The default value for max-containers is 100. The containerinfo plugin will stop collecting
information after it collects information from 100 containers.
4 Communicate with docker daemon (docker-unix-socket): The docker unix socket is used to
communicate with the docker daemon. Default is /var/run/docker.sock
Note
n This key is specific to docker users.
n The default value can be overridden using vmware-toolbox-cmd:
vmware-toolbox-cmd config set docker-unix-socket <path of the socket>
5 Communicate with containerd gRPC server (containerd-unix-socket): The containerd

unix socket is used to communicate with the containerd gRPC server. Default is /run/
containerd/containerd.sock
n The default value can be overridden using vmware-toolbox-cmd:
vmware-toolbox-cmd config set containerd-unix-socket <path of the

socket>
6 Disabling the containerinfo plugin:
To disable the containerinfo gather loop set the poll-interval=0

vmware-toolbox-cmd config set containerinfo poll-interval 0
Configure Service Discovery

The Service Discovery plugin connects with the vRealize Operations Manager product. This plug-
in provides fabric admins with more information to better manage VMs at large scale. VMware
Tools already collects some data from VMs, but it is not sufficient. This plug-in collects additional
data and relays it to vRealize Operations Manager if the management feature is enabled. The
plugin is enabled by default and can be disabled at any time by the guest administrator inside the
guest.
Prerequisites
Ensure that 'vsock' driver is present or installed in windows guest successfully.
Procedure
1 Disabling the Service Discovery plugin: This plugin can be disabled using one of the following
approaches:
n Using the toolbox command utility, execute the following commands:
n For Linux
vmware-toolbox-cmd config set servicediscovery disabled true
n For Windows
VMwareToolboxCmd.exe config set servicediscovery disabled true

n Open tools.conf file and manually add the following section:
[servicediscovery]
disabled = true
2 Enabling the Service Discovery plugin: This plugin can be enabled using one of the following
approaches:
n Using the toolbox command utility, execute the following commands:
n For Linux
vmware-toolbox-cmd config set servicediscovery disabled false
n For Windows
VMwareToolboxCmd.exe config set servicediscovery disabled false

n Open tools.conf file and manually add the following section:
[servicediscovery]
disabled = false
Configure VMware Time Provider for Windows

A new time provider plugin vmwTimeProvider is provided for Microsoft Windows native time
synchronization service 'W32Time' running inside vSphere VMs. The plugin interacts with
precision clock virtual device to provide underlying ESXi host time, as an alternative to NTP and
Active Directory based time sources.
Prerequisites
Ensure to add a precision clock virtual device to the VM before using the vmwTimeProvider
plugin.
Note For information on how to add a precision clock virtual device to a VM, see vSphere Virtual
Machine Administration document.
Procedure
u Enable vmwTimeProvider plugin:
To add this plugin, explicitly select the VMware Time Provider component in the VMware
Tools installer setup during installation. This component is de-selected, by deafult.
u Disable vmwTimeProvider plugin:
To remove this plugin, modify the installation and de-select the VMware Time Provider
component in the VMware Tools installer.
What to do next
You can check the status of the plugin post installation by running the following w32time
command:
w32tm /query /status
Use GuestStore
The GuestStore feature provides a simple and flexible mechanism to distribute VMware specific
or custom content from a GuestStore repository to multiple guests simultaneously.
To use GuestStore feature, virtual machines must meet the following requirements:
n Virtual machines with Windows guest operating systems must be running on vSphere 7.0 U2
and later versions plus VMware Tools 11.2.5 and later.
n Virtual machines with Linux guest operating systems must be running on vSphere 7.0 U3 and
later versions plus open-vm-tools 11.3.0 and later.
n The file that is distributed through GuestStore must be 512 MB or smaller.
For more information about configuring ESXi hosts for GuestStore feature, see Distributing
Content with GuestStore section in vSphere Virtual Machine Administration documentation.
Get Resource Content

When the GuestStore repository has been configured on ESXi host, resources from the
GuestStore repository can be easily accessed using VMware Tools command line utility.
You can fetch a resource content from the GuestStore repository using the VMware Tools
Toolbox command line utility.
"C:\Program Files\VMware\VMwareTools\VMwareToolboxCmd.exe" gueststore

getcontent <resource path> <output file>
/usr/bin/vmware-toolbox-cmd gueststore getcontent <resource path> <output

file>
where, <resource path> is the path under the GuestStore repository datastore root URL.
For example:
"C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools\VMwareToolboxCmd.exe" gueststore

getcontent /vmware/apps/vmtools/windows64/metadata.json C:\Temp\metadata.json
"C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools\VMwareToolboxCmd.exe"

gueststore getcontent /vmware/configurations/vmtools/windows/tools.conf
C:\Temp\tools.conf
Guest admin can use the following tools.conf settings to control access to the GuestStore
repository.
[guestStore]
disabled = false (By default, access to the GuestStore repository is enabled when configured
on the ESXi host side)
adminOnly = false (By default, admin privilege is not required to access the GuestStore
repository)
If disabled = true, then all guest access to the GuestStore repository is disabled including
Distribute VMware Tools Upgrade on Windows and Distribute VMware Tools Configuration at
Scale features.
When GuestStore access is enabled (disabled = false), setting adminOnly = true restricts
that only administrators or root users can get content from the GuestStore repository by running
the following command:
n Windows
"C:\Program Files\VMware\VMwareTools\VMwareToolboxCmd.exe" gueststore

getcontent <resource path> <output file>
n Linux
/usr/bin/vmware-toolbox-cmd gueststore getcontent <resource path> <output

file>
Distribute VMware Tools Upgrade on Windows

You can perform VMware Tools upgrade for virtual machines from the GuestStore repository.
VMware provides VMware Tools content for download with each new release of VMware Tools.
Starting with VMware Tools releases after 11.2.5, you can download the VMware Tools content
from VMware website and extract it under the GuestStore repository path. Among all VMware
Tools versions extracted in GuestStore repository, the latest version is selected by default for
subsequent upgrades unless overridden by a setting in the VMware Tools configuration file.
By importing the VMware Tools content in the GuestStore repository, you can schedule an
automated VMware Tools upgrade at the next reboot of the virtual machines. You can also
trigger VMware Tools upgrade from GuestStore repository for particular virtual machines
through vSphere UI or API.
Note Triggering VMware Tools upgrade from GuestStore repository using VMware Tools
Toolbox command line is not supported in this release.
GuestStore based VMware Tools upgrade is installed as part of VMware Tools installation. This
feature generates notification to the logged-on user, if GuestStore repository has newer version
of VMware Tools and if VMware Tools upgrade needs a system restart to complete the upgrade
process.
There are multiple policies supported for GuestStore based VMware Tools upgrade. In
tools.conf following setting can be used to configure the policy:
[guestStoreUpgrade]
policy=manual
where, "policy" can have one of the following values:
n off
n Disables the GuestStore based VMware Tools upgrade in the guest.
n manual
n This is the default policy. This policy allows vSphere administrators to trigger VMware
Tools upgrade from GuestStore repository using vSphere UI or API.
n If the virtual machine has VMware Tools upgrade policy configured to upgrade at
powercycle (VMX setting tools.upgrade.policy = "upgradeAtPowerCycle"), the
setting is applied when the GuestStore based VMware Tools upgrade feature is enabled.
On first VMware Tools system service start after virtual machine powers on, VMware
Tools system service queries the host side VMware Tools upgrade policy setting for the
virtual machine. If the policy is set to upgrade at powercycle, a check for an upgrade of
VMware Tools from the GuestStore repository is triggered automatically.
Note When GuestStore based VMware Tools upgrade is enabled, the VMware Tools
bundled with VMware ESXi host is not used including the VMware Tools images added to
VMware ESXi host through vSphere Update Manager (VUM).
n powercycle
n Triggers VMware Tools upgrade from GuestStore repository right after guest OS boots
up.
n This policy also allows vSphere administrators to trigger VMware Tools upgrade from
GuestStore repository using vSphere UI or API.
By default, GuestStore based VMware Tools upgrade picks the latest version of VMware Tools
from GuestStore repository. This behavior can be overridden by specifying a VMware Tools
version for "vmtools-version-key" setting. This setting defaults to "vmtools" which refers to the
latest VMware Tools version in the GuestStore repository.
For example, following setting restricts VMware Tools upgrades from the GuestStore repository
to version 11.2.5.
vmtools-version-key=vmtools-11.2.5
Distribute VMware Tools Configuration at Scale

You can distribute VMware Tools configuration file across multiple virtual machines from the
GuestStore repository.
The GlobalConf feature automatically updates VMware Tools configuration with the configuration
available in the GuestStore repository. The GlobalConf feature is disabled by default. When
enabled, it allows vSphere administrators to distribute global VMware Tools configuration across
multiple virtual machines in the vSphere environment.
The GlobalConf feature relies on VMware Tools configuration being present in GuestStore
repository. By default, VMware Tools configuration is fetched from GuestStore repository
"/vmware/configurations/vmtools/windows/tools.conf" for Windows GOSes and "/
vmware/configurations/vmtools/linux/tools.conf" for Linux GOSes, unless overridden
by a setting in local VMware Tools configuration inside the guest. Before using this feature, the
desired VMware Tools configuration should be added to GuestStore repository as the resource
GlobalConf feature expects.
When the GlobalConf feature is enabled, VMware Tools system service periodically checks for
tools.conf file in the GuestStore respository.
n If a tools.conf file is present, it is downloaded and applied locally at runtime. During this
process, only the settings that are not specified in the local tools.conf file inside the guest
are applied.
n If the tools.conf file is not available in the GuestStore respository, any previously
downloaded configuration file will be deleted from the local file system in the guest.
The GlobalConf module in VMware Tools checks the GuestStore repository every 60 mins by
default. Inside the virtual machine, the guest administrator can manually edit the tools.conf file
to configure various settings related to the GlobalConf module.
GlobalConf feature has the following configuration settings:
[globalconf]
n enabled=true: Enables the module.
n poll-interval=3600: Interval value should be specified in seconds. Default value: 3600

seconds. Minimum Value: 1800 seconds.
n resource=/path/to/tools/conf/in/gueststore: Default value is "/vmware/

configurations/vmtools/windows/tools.conf" for Windows GOSes and "/vmware/
configurations/vmtools/linux/tools.conf" for Linux GOSes.
Note
n The VMware Tools system service (vmsvc) must be restarted, if any of the above settings are
updated in the local tools.conf file.
n Starting from VMware Tools 11.3.0 release, when GlobalConf related settings are modified in
the tools.conf file,VMware Tools system service (vmsvc) does not need a restart.
You can use VMware Tools Toolbox command line utility to perform the following operations:
n Query the state of GlobalConf module.
n Windows
VMwareToolboxCmd.exe globalconf status
n Linux
vmware-toolbox-cmd globalconf status
n Enable the GlobalConf module.
n Windows
VMwareToolboxCmd.exe globalconf enable
n Linux
vmware-toolbox-cmd globalconf enable
n Disable the GlobalConf module.
n Windows
VMwareToolboxCmd.exe globalconf disable
n Linux
vmware-toolbox-cmd globalconf disable
n Trigger an immediate update of VMware Tools configuration from the GuestStore repository
without waiting for polling interval.
n Windows
VMwareToolboxCmd.exe globalconf refresh
n Linux
vmware-toolbox-cmd globalconf refresh
Note You can use the globalconf enable or globalconf disable commands instead of
editing tools.conf for enabling or disablingGlobalConf feature.
Prerequisites
Manually Install VMware Tools on Windows Arm

You can manually install VMware Tools for Windows Arm on a virtual machine running Windows
10 1709 Arm and later versions. VMware only supports Windows Arm VMs running on VMware
Fusion on Apple silicon.
This VMware Tools Arm functionality is limited to:
n Installer with interactive GUI and command line support
n 3D Graphics
n Multiple monitor
n Resizing fit to window
n Guest clock time synchronization
n Soft power operations
n Desktop events for user switching
n Drag and drop of files between the host and guest
n Copy and paste of files and text between host and guest
n vmrun support for running guest operations
For example, transferring files to and from guest, running programs and scripts in the guest.
For the prerequisites and install steps, refer to the Manually Install VMware Tools on Windows
section for the VMware Fusion product.
Uninstalling VMware Tools
6
When the upgrade process of VMware Tools is incomplete, you can uninstall and then reinstall
VMware Tools.
In a vSphere and open-vm-tools deployment, if you decide to use packages specific to Linux
operating systems to manage VMware Tools, and if you already used vSphere to install VMware
Tools, you must uninstall the existing VMware Tools. For more information about Linux OSPs for
VMware Tools, see Operating System Specific Packages for Linux Guest Operating Systems .
Note VMware Tools is available only for very old Linux releases. The open source project
open-vm-tools provides Linux support, and Linux vendors and Linux communities use it to deliver
open-vm-tools for Linux releases. To install, upgrade, and uninstall the open-vm-tools on the
system, use the software management tools provided by the Linux operating system.
For more information about the VMware Tools compatibility with guest operating systems, see
KB 90230.
Prerequisites
n Log in to the guest operating system.
Procedure
1 Select a method to uninstall VMware Tools.
Operating System Action
Windows 7, 8, 8.1, Windows 10, or In the guest operating system, start the Control Panel applet, and select
Windows 11 Programs and Features. Select VMware Tools and click Uninstall.
Windows Vista and Windows Server In the guest operating system, select Programs and Features > Uninstall a
2008 program.
Windows XP and earlier In the guest operating system, select Add/Remove Programs.
Linux Log in as root and enter vmware-uninstall-tools.pl in a terminal

window.
Mac OS X, OS X, or macOS Use the Uninstall VMware Tools application, found in /Library/
Application Support/VMware Tools.
Operating System Action
Windows on ARM In the guest operating system, start the Control Panel applet, and select
Programs and Features. Select VMware Tools and click Uninstall.
Windows Server 2008 R2 and later In the guest operating system, start the Control Panel applet, and select
Programs and Features. Select VMware Tools and click Uninstall.
2 Restart the guest operation system.
What to do next
Reinstall VMware Tools.
Configuring Customer Experience
Improvement Program 7
You can participate in the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) to provide
anonymous feedback or information to VMware for quality, reliability, and functionality
improvments of VMware products and services.
n Categories of Information That VMware Receives
n Join or Leave Customer Experience Improvement Program in vSphere Client
Categories of Information That VMware Receives

This product participates in VMware's Customer Experience Improvement Program ("CEIP").
Details regarding the data collected through CEIP and the purposes for which it is used by
VMware are set forth at the Trust & Assurance Center at http://www.vmware.com/trustvmware/
ceip.html.
Join or Leave Customer Experience Improvement Program

in vSphere Client
You can join your vCenter Server to the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP), or
decide to leave the CEIP at any time. To leave and rejoin your host to the CEIP, see vSphere
Single Host Management - VMware Host Client documentation.
Prerequisites
Obtain the user name and password of the administrator account.
Procedure
1 From the vSphere Client login page, log in to vCenter Server by using the credentials of the
administrator account.
2 On the vSphere Client home page, click Administration.
3 Under Deployment, click Customer Experience Improvement Program
4 Click Join to enable the CEIP or Leave CEIP to disable the Program.
VMware Tools Install and Upgrade
Issues 8
This topic covers issues related to VMware Tools install and upgrade process.
n Install or Upgrade to VMware Tools 10.3.0
Install or Upgrade to VMware Tools 10.3.0

VMware Tools 10.3.0 depends on and ships Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable version
14.0. While preparing the system for VMware Tools 10.3.0 installation, Microsoft Visual C++ 2017
Redistributable is installed on the system as a prerequisite.
Problem
When installing or upgrading to VMware Tools 10.3.0, different symptoms might be encountered
as described:
n Installing or upgrading to VMware Tools 10.3.0 on Windows versions before Windows 10

might fail with an error message if Windows OS level pre-requisites are not met.
n Installing or upgrading to VMware Tools 10.3.0 on Windows versions before Windows 10

may appear stuck with "VMware Product Installation" dialog box carrying "Preparing 'VMware
Tools' for installation..." message.
n Installing or upgrading to VMware Tools 10.3.0 on Windows versions before Windows 10 asks
for restarting the system without completing the install or upgrade.
n Installing or upgrading to VMware Tools 10.3.0 on Windows versions after Windows 10 asks
for restarting the system without completing the install or upgrade.
Cause
Since VMware Tools 10.3.0 depends on and ships Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable
version 14.0, it requires the Windows operating system to be at a certain service pack level.
Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable also includes Windows Update KB2999226.
Installing Windows Update KB2999226 on the system may take a while and may also need a
system restart depending on the state of the system as mentioned in the article Update for
Universal C Runtime in Windows
The installation might take a long time as described in the article Stuck while installing Visual
Studio 2015 (Update for Microsoft Windows KB2999226)
Note VMware tries to ensure that all external links provided are correct at the time of inclusion
on the website but does not guarantee the accuracy of such information. VMware provides these
links merely as a convenience. Third-party URLs might change. If you find a URL in VMware
documentation that is out of date, provide feedback on the VMware Docs website. You might be
able to locate a third-party document by searching from the third-party home page.
NOTE: This issue applies to only Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows
Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, and Windows Server 2012 R2.
Windows operating system might need a restart for different reasons
n For pre-Windows 10 versions it might be either due to KB2999226 or due to the presence of
an existing older version of Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable DLL on the system that
is already loaded by other applications.
n For Windows 10 and later, the latter reason is a common cause of system restart.
Solution
1 Keep your Windows operating system up-to-date with latest updates.
2 Install the Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable manually before installing or upgrading
VMware Tools to version 10.3.0.
3 Alternatively, install Windows Update KB2999226 manually before installing or upgrading

VMware Tools, as it reduces some of the issues for Windows versions before Windows 10.
4 Update the Windows operating system, Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable and other
Microsoft applications before installing or upgrading to VMware Tools 10.3.0.
5 When the VMware Tools installation or upgrade is invoked with "REBOOT=ReallySuppress"

argument, system might require a manual restart for completing Microsoft Visual C++
2017 Redistributable installation. Reattempt the VMware Tools installation or upgrade after
restarting the Windows system. vSphere Client can detect this situation by noticing no
change in VMware Tools version and "guestinfo.toolsInstallErrCode=3010" in the guest
variables or in the advanced configuration of the VM.
6 When the VMware Tools installation or upgrade is invoked without any arguments, a system
restart may occur automatically to complete Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable install.
After Windows system restarts, reattempt the VMware Tools installation or upgrade.
Troubleshooting VMware Tools
Components 9
When you perform a VMware Tools upgrade, the VMware Tools components are upgraded and
new features are added. If some features do not work correctly after an upgrade, you must
change or repair the components. For operating systems other than Windows and Linux, you
must manually start the VMware User process after an upgrade.
n Repair VMware Tools Components in Windows Virtual Machine
n Start VMware User Process Manually
Repair VMware Tools Components in Windows Virtual

Machine
You need to repair or modify the installed VMware Tools Components, if you have problems with
enhanced graphics display, mouse actions, or with features that depend on VMware Tools.
Some new VMware Tools Components are not installed during a VMware Tools upgrade by
default. You can manually install these by modifying the installed VMware Tools Components.
Use the guest VM operating system’s Programs and Features item in the Windows Control Panel
to repair or modify VMware Tools.
Start VMware User Process Manually

VMware Tools in Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD guest operating systems uses the VMware user
process. This program implements the fit-guest-to-window and other features.
Normally, this process starts after you configure VMware Tools, log out of the desktop
environment, and re-login. You can start the VMware user process by running the vmtoolsd -n
vmusr command. The startup command can be modified based on your system. You must start
the process manually in the following environments:
n If you run an X session without a session manager.
For example, if you use startx to start a desktop session and do not use xdm, kdm, or gdm.
n If you are using an older version of GNOME without gdm or xdm.
n If you are using a session manager or environment that does not support the Desktop
Application Autostart Specification, available from http://standards.freedesktop.org.
n If you upgrade VMware Tools.
Procedure
u Start the VMware User process.
Option Action
Start the VMware User process when Add vmtoolsd -n vmusr to the appropriate X startup script, such as
you start an X session. the .xsession or .xinitrc file.
Start the process after a VMware Open a terminal window and type the vmtoolsd -n vmusr command.
Tools software upgrade, or if certain
features are not working.
VMware Tools FAQs
10
This topic provides frequently asked questions about VMware Tools.
n Can my OS run without VMware Tools?
Although a guest operating system can run without VMware Tools, always run the latest
version of VMware Tools in your guest operating systems to access the latest features
and updates. You can configure your virtual machine to automatically check for and apply
VMware Tools upgrades each time you power on your virtual machines.
n How is VMware Tools released?
ISOs (containing installers): These are packaged with the product and are installed in a
number of ways, depending upon the VMware product and the guest operating system
installed in the virtual machine. For more information, see the Installing VMware Tools section.
VMware Tools provides a different ISO file for each type of supported guest operating
system: Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, NetWare, Solaris, and FreeBSD.
Operating System Specific Packages (OSPs): Downloadable binary packages that are built
and provided by VMware for particular versions of Linux distributions. OSPs are typically
available for older releases, such as RHEL 6. Most current versions of Linux include Open
VM Tools, eliminating the need to separately install OSPs. To download OSPs and to
find important information and instructions, see VMware Tools Operating System Specific
Packages (OSPs). For a list of supported guest operating systems, see VMware Compatibility
Guide.
open-vm-tools (OVT): This is the open source implementation of VMware Tools intended
for Linux distribution maintainors and virtual appliance vendors. OVTs are generally included
in the current versions of popular Linux distributions, allowing administrators to effortlessly
install and update VMware Tools alongside other Linux packages. For more information, see
KB VMware support for Open VM Tools (2073803)
n Which operating systems are supported by open-vm-tools?
n Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.0 and later releases
n SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 and later releases
n Ubuntu 14.04 and later releases
n CentOS 7 and later releases
n FreeBSD 10.3, 10.4 & 11.1
n Debian 7.x and later releases
n Oracle Linux 7 and later
n Fedora 19 and later releases
n openSUSE 11.x and later releases
n Are there VMware Tools VIB available?
Offline bundles with VMware Tools VIB can be installed on vSphere 5.5.x, 6.0.x and 6.5.x
versions using vSphere Update Manager. Offline bundles are supported from 10.2.0 and later.

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VMware Tools

About VMware Tools Administration 5

1 Introduction to VMware Tools 6

2 Installing VMware Tools 17

3 Upgrading VMware Tools 39

4 Installing and Automatically Upgrading VMware Tools Component 46

5 Configuring VMware Tools Components 48

Custom VMware Tools Scripts for Windows 55

6 Uninstalling VMware Tools 78

7 Configuring Customer Experience Improvement Program 80

8 VMware Tools Install and Upgrade Issues 81

9 Troubleshooting VMware Tools Components 83

10 VMware Tools FAQs 85

VMware Technical Publications Glossary

VMware Tools has the ability to:

Read the following topics next:

n VMware Tools Services

n VMware Tools Lifecycle Management

n VMware Tools Device Drivers

n VMware User Process

n Operating System Specific Packages for Linux Guest Operating Systems

VMware Tools Services

n VMware Alias Manager and Ticket Service or VGAuthService: VGAuthService in taskmgr

Note This is applicable for Windows guest operating systems only.

n autoUpgrade - Handles VMware Tools upgrade operations.

n deployPkg - Handles guest customization operations.

n desktopEvents - Starting or stopping VMware Tools user service based on screen/X11

Note This is a VMware Tools user service plugin.

n disableGuestHibernate - Disables option for hibernation in guest operating system.

n guestInfo - Collects and reports guest information and statistics to hypervisor.

n hwUpgradeHelper - Handles changes due to virtual hardware upgrade.

n resolutionKMS - Handles communicating guest user interface topology to the vmwgfx

Note This plugin is for Linux only.

n timeSync - Synchronizes guest clock with host clock at power on or resume.

n vmtray - Provides VMware Tools tray icon and pop-up menu.

Note This is a VMware Tools user service plugin.

n vsep - Manages NSX file and network introspection.

n vix - Handles guest operations related to files, processes and registry.

VMware Tools Lifecycle Management

Mapping of VMware Tools and Guest Operating System

Table 1-1. VMware Tools support for Guest Operating Systems

ISO Images Supported Guest Operating System Available Version

windows.iso Windows Vista SP2 and later 10.3.0

linux.iso Linux guest operating systems with glibc version 10.3.0

darwin.iso MAC OS versions 10.11 and later 10.3.0

solaris.iso Solaris operating systems 10.3.0

ISO images Supported Guest Operating System Version of VMware Tools

winPre2k.iso Versions earlier than Windows 2000 7.7.0

netware.iso Netware operating systems 8.1.0

winPreVista.iso Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 10.0.12

Note The Windows pre-Vista iso image for

ISO images Supported Guest Operating System Version of VMware Tools

linuxPreGLibc25.iso Linux guest operating systems earlier than RHEL 5, 10.0.12

darwinPre15.iso MAC OS versions earlier than 10.10.x 10.0.12

VMware Tools Device Drivers

Guest Introspection Driver

VMXNet NIC Driver

Paravirtual SCSI Driver