Install Open Source VMware Tools on Linux Red Hat/CentOS 6

VMware makes a repository available to install the VMware tools for a variety of Linux distributions including Red Hat, CentOS.

1. Import the VMware repository GPG public keys:

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

2. Add the VMware repository:

Create the file "vmware-tools.repo" in the directory "/etc/repos.d/".

touch /etc/yum.repos.d/vmware-tools.repo

Add the following lines:

[vmware-tools]
name=VMware Tools
baseurl=http://packages.vmware.com/tools/esx/4.1latest/rhel6/$basearch
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1


3. Install VMware tools:

yum install -y vmware-open-vm-tools