VMware tools in RHEL 7

The open-vm-tools package is a suite of open source virtualization utilities and drivers which improve performance and user experience when running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 as a guest on a VMware vSphere ESX(i) hypervisor. The open-vm-tools package provides a secure and authenticated mechanism for performing various operations on the guest operating system from the hypervisor.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 includes the latest stable release of open-vm-tools. Updates to the open-vm-tools package are provided with the operating system maintenance updates and patches.

[root@RHEL7 ~]# rpm -qa |grep open-vm

open-vm-tools-9.10.2-4.el7.x86_64

open-vm-tools-desktop-9.10.2-4.el7.x86_64

[root@RHEL7 ~]#

To interact with open-vm-tools , issue commands to the vmtoolsd service from a guest with the systemctl command, for example:

To query whether open-vm-tools is running:

# systemctl status vmtoolsd.service

To start open-vm-tools:

# systemctl start vmtoolsd.service

To start open-vm-tools on boot, enable the vmtoolsd service:

# systemctl enable vmtoolsd.service

To restart open-vm-tools:

# systemctl restart vmtoolsd.service

To stop open-vm-tools:

# systemctl stop vmtoolsd.service

To disable the vmtoolsd service from running at boot:

# systemctl disable vmtoolsd.service

For additional help with the vmtoolsd and other commands, run:

# systemctl help vmtoolsd