Accepted Solutions
Hi,
That's the correct place for the mounting, but not for running the vmware tools install script.
If you run:
ls /mnt/cdrom
Do you then get a list that includes VMwareTools-xxxxxx.tar.gz ?
(where xxxxx is some number) If not then don't mind the other steps.
In that case please return the output of "df -h"
If OTOH you get the correct output then let's try again (and I'll explain the steps this time)
- cd ~
- cp /mnt/cdrom/VMwareTools-*.tar.gz .
- tar -xvf VMwareTools-*.tar.gz
- cd vmware-tools-distrib/
- sudo apt-get update
- sudo apt-get upgrade
- sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r`
- sudo ./vmware-install.pl --default
cd ~ --> change directory to your home folder
cp /mnt/cdrom/VMwareTools-*.tar.gz . --> that copies the tar.gz file to the current directory (.) don't miss the dot 
tar -xvf VMwareTools-*.tar.gz --> unpack the tar.gz file. This should create a folder vmware-tools-distrib in your home folder
cd vmware-tools-distrib --> change into the folder that has the actual scripts and code for vmware-tools
the sudo apt-get lines are for getting the latest software packages and the line with build-essential etc. pulls in the compilers and make tools etcetera for being able to compile the source.
sudo ./vmware-install.pl --default --> starts the compilations and install of vmware tools.
--
Wil
Hi,
Sven is correct. Just a few small tidbits though.
Before installing open-vm-tools (and for features like drag&drop, etc.. open-vm-tools-desktop) I do recommend to completely uninstall the VMware Tools bundled with VMware Fusion.
In addition open-vm-tools does include shared folders nowadays as well.
On any recent Linux VM, you should normally not need to install the bundled VMware Tools anymore.
--
Wil
Hi,
I don't have the bundled vmware-tools installed on a ubuntu VM that matches your Linux Mint, but on a ubuntu 14.04 VM that same locate message scrolls several pages of vmware tools related files. Now it isn't how I would troubleshoot anything vmware tools related though.
Have you already ran?
sudo apt-get install open-vm-tools open-vm-tools-desktop
At this moment I'm not sure what version of VMware Tools you have installed.
It seems like you are running open-vm-tools as your locate does not show files under /usr/lib/vmware-tools which is where the bundled vmware tools used to have a lot of its files.
But I'm also not seeing the expected open-vm-tools folders under /usr/share from your locate command, but perhaps locatedb has to be run once more.
Atm I'm slightly flabbergasted as on a debian guest of mine that I HAVE used shared folders, the shared folders now don't work..
As it turns out I had to manually run the fuse command to mount the shared folders??
sudo /usr/bin/vmhgfs-fuse /mnt/hgfs
Which then are only accessible via root (skipping the sudo part does not work on my end for whatever reason) but at least I can access the files on the share after doing this.
--
Wil
Hi Sven,
It worked fine two weeks ago with just open-vm-tools, I didn't do anything extra back then.
Not sure why I now had to run the command to mount manually, but it certainly isn't (and shouldn't) be required to install the bundled tools for just that one feature.
The functionality is there, it just doesn't get started for whatever reason on my debian 9 vm.
To be clear I don't want the bundled tools they are a huge PITA when installing a new kernel, I want a VM without all those extra build tools that are required for the bundled install.
edit: Looks like the vmhgfs install that comes with open-vm-tools is corrupt (sigh)
So will wait until debian checks in the fix, looks like a kernel update broke the vmware shared folders...
$ sudo vmhgfs-fuse -o allow_other -o auto_unmount .host:/mnt/hgfs /mnt/hgfs
$ ls -alh /mnt/
ls: cannot access '/mnt/hgfs': No such file or directory
total 12K
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4.0K Mar 17 16:33 .
drwxr-xr-x 23 root root 4.0K Feb 27 13:49 ..
d????????? ? ? ? ? ? hgfs
If I unmount the /mnt/hgfs folder it is just root:root (also tried with <user>:<user>) where <user> is my user name.
Also tried via /etc/fstab
Deleted the /mnt/hgfs folder, recreated it etc.. it's a mess.
See here for tips on how it is supposed to work:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/VMware/Installing_Arch_as_a_guest#Tips_and_tricks
--
Wil
Hi,
But I cant help but notice that you dont seem to think I SHOULD be able to share directories??? (in ubuntu, not debian)
Not sure why you think that, it should just work, even with just open-vm-tools. Ubuntu / debian / mint ... it's all debian based, I just happen to like debian, but mint should work fine too, nothing wrong with that.
For /usr/bin/vmhgfs-fuse to work you need to create a mount point first.
Like in my case I created folder /mnt/hgfs (although I had that folder already from when it worked, I did delete and recreate as a troubleshooting step)
--
Wil
Here's another thought... did you install a graphical user interface on your VM?
Because the open-vm-tools-desktop part does depend on that....
--
Wil
Hi,
Still not sure from your reply if you have a desktop environment (GUI) installed or not, but if not then the below might help, otherwise not really.
Using just the text screens in a linux guest is a bit unfriendly as you don't even get clipboard integrations.
In that scenarion you would have depend on things like ssh in order to be able to use simple copy&paste operations.
If you have a desktop environment (the GUI) then suddenly the linux guest becomes a lot easier to use.
So there is not a special sharing GUI, but just the desktop environment in which open-vm-tools-desktop integrates.
However if you are using text only linux mint then you can add a desktop like so:
apt-get update && apt-get install mint-meta-mate
This would install the mate desktop. I'm not a mint user, but a google search tells me there's also mint-meta-kde and mint-meta-gnome if you prefer a KDE or gnome desktop.
--
Wil