VMware tools are needed on VMware virtual machines so that guest operating systems can run without any performance issues.

I have installed CentOS 5 on VMware workstation 5.5 and here is how i installed VMware Tools in CentOS 5:

1. Install CentOS 5 kernel-devel packages required for VMware Tools installation

1. First make sure you have network access to download and install packages from CentOS packages site. During installation of VMware Tools CentOS kernel devel packages are needed, run yum (yellow dog update manager) to install gcc and kernel devel.

2. Verify installed and running version of kernel and kernel headers (kernel-devel) in CentOS 5.

centosdev # uname -r

centosdev # rpm -q kernel-devel					

On my CentOS server both version are different.

3. If you’re running version of kernel and kernel headers are different then upgrade on kernel and kernel headers

centosdev # yum -y upgrade kernel kernel-devel

centosdev # reboot

4. Locate the path of install kernel headers in your CentOS 5 Linux server, you will need this path while installing VMware Tools :

centosdev # ls -d /usr/src/kernels/$(uname -r)*/includ

2. Installing VMware Tools in CentOS 5

My development CentOS server runs under VMware Workstation 5.5

1.Select from VMware Workstation: go to VM> Install VMware Tools

2.From the VM: mount the virtual cd drive , this should be done with the guest OS (CentOS ) command line:

centosdev # mount /dev/cdrom /mn

3. From the CDROM extract VMware Tools into /tmp/ directory

centosdev # mount tar -C /tmp -zxvf /mnt/VMwareTools-5.5.3-34685.tar.gz

4. In CentOS 5 unmount the virtual cd drive after you are done.

centosdev # umount /mnt

5. Running VMware Tools installation/setup script

centosdev # cd /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib

centosdev # ./vmware-install.pl

6. This is VMware Tools installation/setup script, it will ask for confirmation to begin the installation

centosdev # ./vmware-install.pl

Do you want to run vmware-config-tools.pl?, answer "Yes".