How to Install VMware Guest Tools on Ubuntu Linux

This post shows students and new users how to install VMware Guest Machines Tools on Ubuntu guest machines to enhance performance.

The VMware Tools offer several valuable features, including improved graphics performance, shared folders, shared clipboard, drag and drop operations, and more.

We recently showed you how to install VMware Workstation Pro on Ubuntu Linux. You can read that post here.

Whenever you create a new Ubuntu guest machine, you should always follow up with installing the VMware Guest Tools. Without the Guest Tools, the virtual machine may not work as intended.

The tools are now available as open-source packages called Open VM Tools (OVT) and via Ubuntu default package repositories. You can also use the built-in tools that come with VMware host software.

In my test, I found that built-in tools work better than open-source ones.

To learn how to install VMware guest tools, follow the steps below:

How to install the Open VM Tools on Ubuntu guest machines

As mentioned above, Open VM Tools is the open-source implementation of VMware guest tools. The packages are available in Ubuntu default repositories.

The tools are split into two packages: open-VM-tools for headless systems and open-vm-tools-desktop for desktop systems.

To install the opensource version, run the comment below:

Servers:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install open-vm-tools

Desktops:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install open-vm-tools-desktop

It would be best to restart the machine for the changes to take effect.

How to install VMware Guest Tools from VMware Host

The tools can also be installed from VMware host software. For desktop machines, this might be a better option.

To install, open the VMware host software. Start the guest machine and select VM –> Install VMware Tools from the guest machine menu.

This will temporarily mount the VMware Workstation virtual CD drive with the guest tools content onto the Ubuntu guest machine.

While the virtual CD drive is mounted, open the Ubuntu terminal by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T keys on your keyboard.

Then, run the commands below to extract the content from the virtual CD drive you must mount to the /tmp directory. This directory is a temporary location and will be deleted once the system reboots.

tar -xvf /media/$USER/"VMware Tools"/VMwareTools*.gz -C /tmp

Finally, run the commands below to install the tools. The -d option with the commands will install all the recommended plugins and modules with the default options.

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

If you want to manually select the options and configuration, run it without the -d option.

When the installation is complete, reboot your machine, and you’re all set!

Conclusion:

This post showed you how to install the VMware Guest Tools on Ubuntu guest machines. Please use the comment form below if you find any errors above or have anything to add.