VMware tools

[PKKR]

Installing VMware tools package will greatly enhance graphics and mouse performance in your VM.

What are the other reasons/uses of vmware tools?

Thanks,

Prashant

[rickardnobel]

Prashant wrote:

Installing VMware tools package will greatly enhance graphics and mouse performance in your VM.

What are the other reasons/uses of vmware tools?

You get the ability to do a graceful shutdown from outside the guest and the Vmkernel could install the so called "balloon driver" which will help in memory reclaiming.

There is also the possibility for HA to do checks against VMs through heartbeats.

Another good reason is the get the drivers for paravirtual adapters like PVSCSI and VMXNET3.

[PKKR]

Hi Ricard,

Could you please elaborate the below terms:

1. Balooning

2. Baloon driver

3. Gracefully shutdown from outside the guest

Thanks,

Prashant

[rickardnobel · Accepted solution]

Prashant wrote:

Could you please elaborate the below terms:

1. Balooning

2. Baloon driver

3. Gracefully shutdown from outside the guest

The concept of memory reclaiming and the balloon driver is quite complex. I would recommend you do some basic reading on VMware memory handling and I would be glad to answer any questions about this then.

As for nr 3. it means that you could select "Shutdown VM" from the vSphere Client without logging in to the VM first, but still doing a gentle shutdown and not a raw power off.