Install VMware Tools on ESXi for Ubuntu Guest

If you want to install VMware Tools on ESXi for an Ubuntu Guest, there is two possibilities:

Use the package provided on distribution (but can be not up-to-date and so not approved)
Install directly from official sources provided in vSphere Client (will be automatically recognized)

This solution is the easiest way to install tools. You just have to use apt on your guest to install it:

sudo apt-get install open-vm-tools

This solution is not as simple as the previous one but is really sure and well-guided.

Connect to your ESXi server using vSphere Client
At this moment, ensure that you have a CDROM hardware available for your VM Guest (in Settings)
Start your VM Guest running Ubuntu
Check that you have already needed packages installed (most of time, they are not installed with a standard configuration):
- gcc
- build-essential
- binutils
You can use this command line to install them:
```
sudo apt-get install gcc build-essential binutils
```
You can now connect VMware Tools on your VM Guest using vSphere Client:
- Right-click on your VM name
- Select “Guest” > “Install/Upgrade VMware Tools”
- Wait a few seconds
This action will automatically (and transparently) mount the VMwre Tools CD into your VM Guest Ubuntu.
Open a console on your VM Guest to mount the CDROM you just connected:
```
sudo mount /dev/cdrom /mnt
```
Copy the VMwareTools-x.x.x-xxxxxxx.tar.gz file from the CDROM to a local folder (‘x’ values depend on version used):
```
cp /mnt/VMwareTools-9.0.5-1065307.tar.gz /tmp/
```

Unzip the VMware tools package you just copied:

cd /tmp/
tar xzvf VMwareTools-9.0.5-1065307.tar.gz

Go to the new folder created while unzipping file and run the installer script (perl script):
```
cd /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib
sudo ./vmware-install.pl
```
From now, just follow the instructions displayed on the screen to install VMware tools.

Once all of this is done, you will see on vSphere, in VM details, that the vMware Tools are correctly installed.

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