A Linux guest in VMWare is pretty common. And I think the most commong reason for installing VMWare Tools into the guest is to improve graphics performance and allow mouse tracking (so you can slide in and out of the guest window with Ctrl + Alt clicking).

But if you use Linux Guests for servers, you probably have a console only install. One problem we’ve found is that VMWare does not initiate an ACPI shutdown call when you power off from the VMWare Console. The option is there in the Virtual Machine settings (Power -> “Shutdown Guest OS” / “Power Off”), but it doesn’t do anything unless you have the VMWare tools installed.

Generic installation instructions for VMWare Tools into Debian Linux guest OS:

The “Install VMWare Tools” option from the VMWare Console just remaps the guest CDROM to the local host ISO of the tools.

Typically, the tools need to build the kernel module (at least, I’ve never used a kernel that they support properly). So, from console Debian, as root:

1. apt-get install linux-image-2.6-686
2. apt-get install linux-headers-2.6-686
3. shutdown -r now (to activate the new kernel)
4. mount /cdrom
5. cp /cdrom/*.tar.gz ~/
6. cd
7. tar -xvzf vmware…tar.gz
8. cd vmware-tools-distrib/
9. perl ./vmware-install.pl
10. Spam enter key
11. shutdown -r now (to activate vmxnet)
12. Complete