open-vm-tools - Official repository of VMware open-vm-tools project

open-vm-tools is a set of services and modules that enable several features in VMware products for better management of, and seamless user interactions with, guests. It includes kernel modules for enhancing the performance of virtual machines running Linux or other VMware supported Unix like guest operating systems.

• The ability to perform virtual machine power operations gracefully.
• Execution of VMware provided or user configured scripts in guests during various power operations.
• The ability to run programs, commands and file system operation in guests to enhance guest automation.
• Authentication for guest operations.
• Periodic collection of network, disk, and memory usage information from the guest.
• Generation of heartbeat from guests to hosts so VMware's HA solution can determine guests' availability.
• Clock synchronization between guests and hosts or client desktops.
• Quiescing guest file systems to allow hosts to capture file-system-consistent guest snapshots.
• Execution of pre-freeze and post-thaw scripts while quiescing guest file systems.
• The ability to customize guest operating systems immediately after powering on virtual machines.
• Enabling shared folders between host and guest file systems on VMware Workstation and VMware Fusion.
• Copying and pasting text, graphics, and files between guests and hosts or client desktops.