Install VMware Tools on CentOS Guest via Yum

In the course of running my home lab on the latest VMware hypervisor (ESXi 5.1.0 799733), I thought it prudent to evaluate the install and function of the VMware Tools package for a CentOS 6.3 guest. Here’s how I got her done:

Add the VMware GPG keys (optional, but a good idea):
rpm –import http://packages.vmware.com/tools/keys/VMWARE-PACKAGING-GPG-DSA-KEY.pub
rpm –import http://packages.vmware.com/tools/keys/VMWARE-PACKAGING-GPG-RSA-KEY.pub
Create the vmware-tools.repo in /etc/yum.repos.d/ with the following contents:
[vmware-tools]
name=VMware Tools
baseurl=http://packages.vmware.com/tools/esx/5.1latest/rhel6/$basearch
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
Install the VMware tools core package with dependencies:
yum install vmware-tools-core
From now on, any time the WMware tools for ESXi 5.1 are updated, you can update them via the usual yum update method. Bear in mind that if you upgrade your ESXi install, you’ll need to manually update the baseurl variable in /etc/yum.repos.d/vmware-tools.repo.

*Note: there are additional packages available should you require more than the core functionality of VMware tools – you can view them by browsing the packages at http://packages.vmware.com/tools/esx/5.1latest/rhel6/ or by running yum search vmware.