How do I install VMware-Tools/Improving server performance when on VMware

Issue

The VMware server is slow|

Environment

• CloudLinux OS 6(h)/7(h)/8
• cPanel/Plesk/DirectAdmin/No panel

Solution

To mitigate the slowness the VMware-Tools have to be installed. It is a suite of utilities that enhance the performance of VM guest operating system and improves its management. 

Check if they are installed and kernel modules are loaded, the vmci is the main one:

# lsmod | grep vm
vmci                   80373  1 vsock

If you see no vmci in the output, then most probably they are not installed.

We do recommend installing them from source code using the original article. 

Same time here is the basic Installation process:

1. From the VMWare GUI interface click in VM menu > Guest > Install/Upgrade VMware tools (at least). After that their cdrom will be attached as /dev/cdrom .

2. Mount it:

mkdir /mnt/cdrom

mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom

3. Then install kernel headers and VMware-Tools:

yum install kernel-headers

cd /mnt/cdrom/vmware-tools-distrib

./vmware-install.pl

4. Follow the wizard (pressing enter in most cases), make them enabled on startup.

5. Check if vmci exists in lsmod.

6. If you see tools installed but no module loaded - run the configuration from the command line:

vmware-config-tools.pl