HowTo Install VMWare Tools on Linux Guests

VMWare Tools need to be installed on guests to prevent approx 50% time loss. Here are the steps:

on each guest: yum install gcc gcc-c++
edit guest config files on server to sync time (I usually do all at once): cd /var/lib/vmware/Virtual Machines/ ; vi `find . -type f -name "machine.vmx"` Add the line tools.syncTime = "TRUE"
scp VMTools plus kernel files that correspond to kernel (uname -a): scp VMwareTools-1.0.5-80187.i386.rpm kernel-devel-2.6.18-92.1.6.el5.i686.rpm kernel-headers-2.6.18-92.1.6.el5.i386.rpm guest:.
install rpms; force as sometimes other kernel headers are installed and -U or -i barfs: rpm -ivh --force *rpm
change root password; logon via VMWare GUI console; run vmware-config-tools.pl . Even though the kernel header files have been installed, sometimes the script doesn’t find them, so you need to manually ln -s /usr/src/kernel/2.6.fubar/include /usr/src/linux/include
halt each guest
restart server (you could just restart all the VMWare processes, but restarting the server is more time efficient, and usually I’ve only got a short time window to get it right)
start each guest via VMWare GUI console
ssh back to each guest and reset root password