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

 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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