VMware Tools

VMware Tools FAQ

Installing VMware Tools is generally required so that virtual machines (VMs) can fully participate in the VMware memory overcommit features by providing the per-VM memory balloon driver. This driver provides a mechanism for the VM to contract and expand memory (within the preset settings of the VM) upon request by the VMkernel. Other than this, there are a host of other drivers and tools that make up VMware Tools. Those are:

• vmmemctl - Balloon driver.
• vmxnet - Paravirtualized network VMwaredriver.
• vmblock - Block filesystem driver to provide drag-and-drop functionality from the remote console.
• vmsync - Sync driver for freezing and thawing filesystems (Linux specific).
• vmhgfs - VMware host/guest file system driver (not used within ESX).
• SVGA Display Driver for Windows systems.
• Mouse Driver for Windows systems.
• vmdesched - Experimental driver for improving time keeping.
• vsock - Socket driver that works with VMCI.
• VMware Guest Daemon for controlling communication between the guest and the host including time sychronization.
• VMware Toolbox for Linux or VMware Tray for Windows for controlling various VMware Tools settings.

A few FAQs:

Do I have to install VMware Tools?
Not at all, your VMs will run fine without VMware Tools, but they will not be notified when memory ballooning occurs. The balloon driver aids the OS in handling these cases. Continued »

Updating VMware ESX? Don’t forget VMware Tools

While VMware Tools guest OS upgrades are an inconvenience in the life of a VMware ESX and VMware Infrastructure 3 (VI3) administrator, they need to be done. VMware Tools is a set of drivers designed to greatly improve console interaction, but also includes drivers such as disk and network devices for most operating systems. As new versions of ESX are available, the guest operating system will need to be upgraded. Having the VMware Tools running with an old version will give basic functionality, but will need to be upgraded eventually on the virtual machine (VM).

The good news there are a few ways to approach getting tools out to the guest VM. Here are a few from my bag of tricks that you can use:

Install through Windows Group Policy: For 100% virtualized Windows environments within an organizational unit (OU), this is easy for the one-time installation. This can be applied to a computer accounts OU that contain VMware-based virtual machines.

Interactive or automatic install on guest console: This option can allow the tools to be upgraded from the VMware Tools .ISO that’s mounted and run on the guest VM. Note that the automatic upgrade may require an automatic reboot of the VM. The option to install or upgrade tools is shown below:

Run VMware Tools upgrade from a UNC path. If you copy the contents of the mounted .ISO of VMware Tools to a shared path on the network, Windows-based guest VMs can run the install from that central location. This can save the work of adding permissions for junior administrators to have device mount permissions in VMware, and you can control the access entirely in the operating system.

One caveat is that installations or upgrades of VMware Tools usually cause an interruption in network connectivity by updating the network driver. Depending on the mechanism accessed and its configuration for disconnected sessions, the install may be cancelled. This can happen in certain Remote Desktop for Windows systems in particular during installations of VMware Tools.

Lastly, this challenge of updating VMware Tools is not unique to VMware ESX Server. The same challenge exists on VMware Workstation, VMware Server as well as other products, but may be solved in the same fashion.