How to install VMware tools for Turnkey Linux Ubuntu Appliances like Drupal

I'd been frustrated by the fact that I could never seem to get the VMware tools to install in my Turnkey Linux - Ubuntu based Drupal Appliance running on ESXor ESXi.

**UPDATE 11 AUG 2010** If the method below doesn't work for you, see this link for more help.

As always, a full backup before attempting any of this is recommended. Highly!

The first thing to do after install of the system is to check that it is up to date. This is done by running:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

For Ubuntu 8.04 you will have to get VMwareTools version 6.0.3 or later, 6.0.2 won't compile.

First setup the environment by installing the build tools:

sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r)

Next install the package psmisc to get killall that is required by the VMware tools

sudo apt-get install psmisc

Next it should ask VMware to mount the VMwareTools CD by clicking on VM > Install VMware Tools… in the VMware Server menu.

Mount the cdrom:

mount/media/cdrom0

uncompress the tools to the tmp directory:

cd /tmp

and then

tar xvzf /media/cdrom0/VMwareTools*.gz

run the vmware-install.pl script accepting all the defaults (done by the -d flag)

sudo vmware-tools-distrib/vmware-install.pl -d

Pay no attention to the instructions for using the vmxnet driver; it's already loaded at this point.

Clean up

rm -rf vmware-tools-distrib

I hope you find this useful also...