Install kernel headers and some tools used to install VMware tools:

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apt-get install binutils cpp gcc make psmisc linux-headers-$(uname -r) libglib2.0-0

Mount the cdrom drive. Make sure you have mounted the VMware tools virtual cd from the host before moving on.

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mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/

Extract VMware tools to the tmp directory:

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tar -C /tmp -zxvf /mnt/VMwareTools-x.x.x.tar.gz

Unmount the virtual cd:

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umount /mnt

Make sure you run the following command from the Console, don’t try to run it using SSH because the network will be restarted and the installation will fail.

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cd /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib
./vmware-install.pl

Accept the defaults for every question. Make sure you’re located inside the vmware-tools-distrib folder when executing the vmware-install.pl script or the installation will fail.

If during the setup you didn’t let the vmware-config-tools script run, run it:

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/usr/bin/vmware-config-tools.pl

To finish the installation and start the virtual machine with VMware tools installed, reboot the virtual machine:

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reboot