Installing VMware Tools in BackTrack

NOTE:  GNOME VMware image of BackTrack has VMware Tools installed by default.

Backtrack 5 R2

NOTE: KDE Users, please run the following command before installing VMWare tools on BackTrack 5 R2:

root@bt:~# mkdir /etc/cups/ppd

For google's sake, here's the error you get if you do not create that directory, on a BT5R2 KDE install:

Unable to create symlink "/etc/cups/ppd/VMware_Virtual_Printer.ppd" pointing to file "/usr/lib/vmware-tools/configurator/thinprint.ppd".

• On an upgraded or freshly installed BackTrack 5 R2:

root@bt:~# prepare-kernel-sources

• Next on the VMware Player, we click Virtual Machine -> Install VMware Tools.
• Now let's quickly setup the VMware Tools by issuing the following commands:

root@bt:~# mkdir /mnt/cdrom; mount /dev/cdrom  /mnt/cdrom
root@bt:~# cp /mnt/cdrom/VMwareTools-<version>.tar.gz /tmp/
root@bt:~# cd /tmp/
root@bt:~# tar zxpf VMwareTools-<version>.tar.gz 
root@bt:~# cd vmware-tools-distrib/
root@bt:~# ./vmware-install.pl 

NOTE: After this a series of questions will come, if you are unsure about them just leave them default. At the time of this posting, the VMWare tools do not compile cleanly with kernel 3.2.6. In particular, the vmxnet driver fails to compile. However, the BackTrack 3.2.6 kernel already has a native vmxnet driver, so there should be no overall loss of performance.