VMWare Tools

Under Debian Stretch, you have to install following packages in order to install the VMWare Tools, as indicated :

• gcc,
• linux_headers-…,
• net-tools.

make should be already installed.

To duplicate a virtual machine, simply duplicate the entire directory.

This procedure is for a VMWare Player patched to handle Mac OS.

Use a copy of your .vmdk, as VMWare Player modifies it (and can corrupt it).

• Create a new Virtual Machine,
• I will install the operating system later,
• Next
• Apple Mac OS X (you don't have this entry, than your VMWare Player is no patched),
• select correct version,
• Next,
• Fill as you want,
• Next,
• Fill as you want,
• Next,
• Customize hardware if you want,
• Finish
• Edit Virtual Machine Setting
• Add
• Hard Disk
• Finish
• Next,
• Next,
• Use an existing virtual disk,
• Next,
• Browse…
• Select your .vmdk,
• Launch the VM,
• When you have to select the disk where to install the OS, Utilities/Disk Utility,
• Select the right disk (the one created by VMWare Player).
• Partition,
• +,
• Fill as you want,
• Apply,
• Quit Disk Utility…
• There should now be a disk available for the installation.

On march 2015, when installing/confguring the VMWare Tools (vmware-install.pl or vmware-config-tools.pl) on Debian Wheezy or Jessie, there was an error when compilng the stuff regarding the shared folder (error: ‘struct dentry’ has no member named ‘d_alias’). To get rid of this error, I took the following (inspired from https://communities.vmware.com/thread/502554) :

• Go to the source directory of the VMWare tools modules (should be /usr/lib/vmware-tools/modules/source),
• untar the vmhgfs.tar file (tar -xf vmhgfs.tar),
• edit the inode.c file in the vmhgfs-only directory (resulting from the above untaring),
• prefix all the d_alias occurrences with d_u. (with the dot : d_alias → d_u.d_alias ; there was 2 occurrences).
• retar the vmhgfs-only directory (tar -cf vmhgfs.tar vmhgfs-only).

Et voilà !

Sometimes, after restarting the computer, without any apparent reason, VMWare claims that it has no access to the virtual machine, along with this message : The VMware Authorization Service is not running..
This means that the VMAuthdService was not started as it ought to be. Simply start it with the help of the Service Manager.