Installing VMware Tools in Debian Linux

By Philip C. Paradis
February 14, 2009

From the VMware console (not in an SSH session, as networking will be restarted during the setup process), install some required packages (everything on one line):

apt-get install binutils cpp flex gcc libarchive-zip-perl libc6-dev libcompress-zlib-perl libdb4.3-dev \
libpcre3 m4 make perl perl-modules psmisc unzip zip zlib1g-dev autoconf automake1.9 libtool bison \
autotools-dev g++ build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r`

Click on "Install VMware Tools" in the VMware control panel and run the installer on your server as shown below:

mount /media/cdrom0
cp /media/cdrom0/VMwareTools-*.tar.gz /root/
cd /root/
tar xvfz VMware*
rm VMwareTools-*
cd vmware-tools-distrib
./vmware-install.pl
/etc/init.d/networking stop
rmmod pcnet32
rmmod vmxnet
modprobe vmxnet
/etc/init.d/networking start
ifconfig
exit