VMware Tools

VMware Tools is a set of utilities for increase performance of guest OS of the virtual machine.

The structure of VMware Tools includes components:

• VMware Tools service
• VMware device drivers
• VMware user process
• VMware Tools control panel

2016: Are upgraded by VMware Tools for VMware vSphere 6.5

On November 3, 2016 the VMware company announced change of approach to the VMware Tools organization.

Now VMware Tools for the main guest OS are a part ESXi, the others are delivered separately from platform distribution kits, they can be loaded separately. The standard VMware Tools compatible to the majority OS Windows Linux it is also possible to update by means of VMware Update Manager (VUM)^[1].

The next versions of VMware Tools consist of two releases - VMware Tools 10.1 and VMware Tools/10/12 (it is two different ISO images). Version 10.1 is the developing branch for the modern guest systems/10/12 - frozen it is intended for the outdate, not updated OS.

Appointment of VMware Tools depending on the version, (2016)

In version 10.1 improvements in a part of granularity with assistance of Linux systems are made. If earlier for CentOS the type of guest OS was CentOS 4/5/6/7, then in vSphere 6.5 of the CentOS system from the point of view of VMware Tools are separated into CentOS 7, CentOS 6 and CentOS 4/5.

Many Linux distribution kits go with the integrated version of Open VM Tools, and stated above does not treat them.

The VMware Tools ISO files goes now with files of checksums according to which it is possible to check compliance of packets for authenticity of their origin by means of reconciliation of a hash - it is necessary to be attentive when unpacking components of a packet and from there to remove nothing.

Notes