How to Install Official VMware Tools in Kali Linux 2 Sana

Applies to: Kali Linux 2.0 Sana, VMware Workstation 11/12

Legacy guide: This article preserves the original 2015 procedure for installing the legacy VMware Tools package in Kali Linux 2.0 Sana. Do not use this procedure as the default method for current Kali Linux releases.

This tutorial shows the legacy VMware Tools installation method used with Kali Linux 2.0 Sana. If you need the matching Kali 2.0 installation guide, see How to Install Kali Linux 2.0 Sana in VMware Workstation.

Current Kali Linux: Use open-vm-tools

For current Kali Linux releases, use open-vm-tools rather than the legacy VMware Tools tar package shown later in this article. Kali notes that VMware recommends the distribution-specific open-vm-tools package, and modern Kali installations normally detect VMware and install the required guest tools automatically.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y --reinstall open-vm-tools-desktop fuse
sudo reboot -f

Current reference: Installing VMware Tools (Guest Tools) – Kali Linux Documentation.

What is VMware Tools?

VMware Tools is a suite of guest utilities that improves integration between a VMware virtual machine and its host. This legacy guide uses the VMware Tools tar-based installer that was common at the time. On current Linux guests, open-vm-tools is the preferred implementation.

Why Should We Install VMware Tools in Kali Linux?

Guest tools improve integration between Kali Linux and VMware, including display resizing, clipboard integration, drag and drop, time synchronization and shared-folder support. For the historical Kali 2.0 Sana environment documented here, the steps below use the legacy VMware Tools installer. Current Kali releases should use open-vm-tools instead.

Legacy video: You can also watch the original How to Install Official VMware Tools in Kali Linux 2 Sana Step-by-Step video. It demonstrates the historical procedure described below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SOBsdpTH-s

Official VMware Tools Installation Steps for Kali Linux 2 Sana

1. First, update your Kali Linux 2. To do this, open up terminal and write the command below:

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade -y

2. Second, Install appropriate Kali Linux 2 headers by typing command below:

apt-get install -y linux-headers-$(uname -r)

3. In the VM Menu of the VMware Workstation, Click Install VMware Tools. This mounts a virtual CD-ROM drive containing the VMware Tools installation files.

4. Click Open With Files on the pop-up menu inside Kali Linux.

5. You need to extract VMwareTools-9.x.tar.gz file. To do this, right click the file and then choose Extract To.

6. Choose destination. In this article I choose /tmp directory as shown below.

7. Now we are ready to install VMware-Tools binaries. To do this, open up your terminal again, if it is not already opened and then write the command below in order to install VMware Tools in Kali Linux 2 with the default parameters.

cd /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib/
./vmware-install.pl -d

8. After Installation is done, you need to reboot your virtual machine.

reboot

Installing VMware Tools in Kali Linux 2 done! After Kali Linux 2 virtual machine starts, you should be able to use drag and drop files feature and can resize or adjust vm screen.

I hope this article is helpful for you. If you liked it or found useful, feel free to like or share it.