How-to Install latest open-vm-tools from source on CentOS 7

\uD83D\uDCD8 Instructions

1. Remove existing open-vm-tools:

   sudo yum remove open-vm-tools

2. Install open-vm-tools dependencies:

   yum install build-essential libmspack-devel libxml2-devel \ 
   xmlsec1-devel libXext-devel libXinerama-devel libXi-devel \ 
   libcurl-devel curl protobuf-compiler protobuf protobuf-devel \
   grpc-cpp rpc-plugins grpc-devel containerd-devel libtool-ltdl-devel \
   glib2-devel pam-devel

3. Download latest open-vm-tools source:

   wget https://github.com/vmware/open-vm-tools/releases/download/stable-12.1.0/open-vm-tools-12.1.0-20219665.tar.gz

4. Uncompress tar ball:

   tar xvf open-vm-tools-12.1.0-20219665.tar.gz

5. Build open-vm-tools:

   cd open-vm-tools*
   autoreconf -i
   ./configure --without-x
   make
   sudo make install && sudo ldconfig

6. Create vmtoolsd.service in /usr/lib/systemd/system/ with the following content:

   [Unit]
   Description=Service for virtual machines hosted on VMware
   Documentation=http://github.com/vmware/open-vm-tools
   ConditionVirtualization=vmware
   Requires=vgauthd.service
   After=vgauthd.service
   DefaultDependencies=no
   Before=cloud-init-local.service
   
   [Service]
   ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/vmtoolsd
   TimeoutStopSec=5
   
   [Install]
   WantedBy=multi-user.target
   Also=vgauthd.service

7. Create vgauthd.service in /usr/lib/systemd/system/ with the following content:

   [Unit]
   Description=VGAuth Service for open-vm-tools
   Documentation=http://github.com/vmware/open-vm-tools
   ConditionVirtualization=vmware
   PartOf=vmtoolsd.service
   
   [Service]
   ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/VGAuthService -s
   TimeoutStopSec=5
   
   [Install]
   RequiredBy=vmtoolsd.service

8. Reload systemd units:

   systemctl daemon-reload

9. Enable and start units:

   systemctl enable --now vgauthd
   systemctl enable --now vmtoolsd

10. Check open-vm-tools version with either vmtoolsd or vmware-rpctool:

    vmtoolsd --version
    VMware Tools daemon, version 12.1.0.37487 (build-20219665)
    
    vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.description"
    open-vm-tools 11.0.5 build 15389592
    
    vmware-rpctool "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.description"
    open-vm-tools 11.0.5 build 15389592

11. Finally, check with the vss-cli:

    vss-cli --columns moref,name,folder.path,tools_running_status,tools_version  compute vm ls -f name=vss-vm12345
    moref     name               folder.path       tools_running_status      tools_version
    --------  -----------------  ----------------  ----------------------  ---------------
    vm-12345  1803P-vss-vm12345  Public > Client1  guestToolsRunning                 12320

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