Installing VMware Tools in the Appliance

Nexthink recommends installing VMware Tools in any Appliance that runs on top of VMware virtualization products such as vSphere. VMware Tools significantly improves the performance and manageability of virtualized Appliances.

Starting from Nexthink V6, the Appliance is distributed with the open-vm-tools package already pre-installed. Therefore, no action is required on your part. When you deploy the Appliance in a VMware environment, it directly benefits from the features provided by the package. In addition, the package is automatically updated via the Appliance updates whenever a new version is available.

If for some reason you need to install the commercial version of VMware Tools, uninstall the open-vm-tools package first and then proceed as follows. Note however that VMware recommends the use of open-vm-tools on those platforms where the package is available, so do not install the commercial version of VMware Tools unless you really know what you are doing.

To install the commercial version of VMware Tools in the Appliance:

1. Open the vSphere Web Client and log in to connect to your vCenter Server.

2. On the left-side pane, click vCenter and select Virtual Machines from the Inventory Lists section.

3. Click the name of the virtual machine that runs the Appliance.

4. In the Summary tab, a yellow warning box displays the message VMware Tools is not installed on this virtual machine.

5. Click the link to the right of the warning message that reads Install VMware Tools.

6. Click Mount in the pop up dialog. A virtual CD with VMware Tools is now attached to your VM.

7. Open a terminal connection to the Nexthink Appliance (e.g. click Launch Console or connect to it via ssh) and log in to its CLI.

8. Type the following commands to mount the virtual CD:

   Code

   sudo mkdir /mnt/cdrom
   sudo mount -t iso9660 /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom

9. Check whether the mount was successful by listing the contents of the cdrom folder. The file VMwareTools-.tar.gz must appear in the list:

   Code

   ls /mnt/cdrom/ 

   Copy the VMware Tools file to the tmp folder and extract its contents:

   Code

   cp /mnt/cdrom/VMwareTools-*.tar.gz /tmp/
   cd /tmp
   tar -xvzf VMwareTools-*.tar.gz
   cd vmware-tools-distrib

10. Install the VMware tools executing the following script:

    sudo ./vmware-install.pl

11. Press Enter to accept the default option whenever asked during the installation process.

12. Reboot the Appliance after install:

    Code

    sudo reboot

After installing VMware Tools, you should be able to see the IP addresses of the VM hosting the Appliance in the Summary tab. The warning message about the installation of VMware Tools disappears.

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RELATED REFERENCE

• Open-VM-Tools project on GitHub