Autoinstalling VMware-Tools

As I wrote before, I have been working on our AutoYaST setup. That entitles determining whether or not we’re currently inside a VMware environment. AutoYaST rules wise, that’s pretty easy (even though the MAC-tag is empty ):

     <!-- Addons: Install VMware Tools / KMP -->
    <rule>
      <custom1>
        <script>
if ip a | grep "link/ether 00:50:56" >/dev/null ; then
  echo -n vmware
fi;
        </script>
        <match>*</match>
        <match_type>exact</match_type>
      </custom1>
      <result>
        <profile>addons/@custom1@.xml</profile>
      </result>
    </rule>

The hard part is figuring out ways, to make the VMware Tools installation as pain free as possible. One thing I can’t do, is running vmware-config-tools.pl …

Since I already install my VMware-Tools Kernel modules package, I really don’t need to. I just needed to find out, what exactly the configuration script does in order to enable the loading of the modules through the init-script.

Finding that out is rather easy, just copy /etc/vmware-tools/locations to locations.orig on a freshly installed system, run vmware-config-tools.pl and then run a diff of those two files.

--- /etc/vmware-tools/locations.orig
+++ /etc/vmware-tools/locations
@@ -68,3 +68,110 @@
 file /usr/bin/vmware-hgfsclient
 remove_file /sbin/mount.vmhgfs
 file /sbin/mount.vmhgfs
+file /lib/modules/2.6.27.19-5-pae/misc/vmmemctl.o 1255413193
+file /lib/modules/2.6.27.19-5-pae/misc/vmmemctl.ko
+answer VMMEMCTL_CONFED yes
+file /lib/modules/2.6.27.19-5-pae/misc/vmhgfs.o 1255413195
+file /lib/modules/2.6.27.19-5-pae/misc/vmhgfs.ko
+answer VMHGFS_CONFED yes
+file /lib/modules/2.6.27.19-5-pae/misc/vmxnet.o 1255413196
+file /lib/modules/2.6.27.19-5-pae/misc/vmxnet.ko
+answer VMXNET_CONFED yes
+file /lib/modules/2.6.27.19-5-pae/misc/vmblock.o 1255413196
+file /lib/modules/2.6.27.19-5-pae/misc/vmblock.ko
+answer VMBLOCK_CONFED yes
+file /etc/vmware-tools/tools.conf 1255413196
+file /etc/vmware-tools/xautostart.conf 1255413196

There is a lot more within that diff, but the important part about those changes are the CONFED parts. Apparently it’s completely enough (at least for the VMware Tools of ESX 3.5u4) to add those to the locations file. *Tada*

Once you start /etc/init.d/vmware-tools the next time, it’ll load the modules.