How to Install VMware Tools on Kali Linux

If you are running Kali Linux on VMware Workstation or on a ESXi host you should ensure that the VMtools package is installed and working correctly. Having the vmtools package installed brings a number of improvements to the running of the virtual machine, including helping with the following:

• Low video resolution and Inadequate color depth
• Incorrect display of network speed
• Restricted movement of the mouse
• Inability to copy and paste and drag-and-drop files
• Missing sound
• Synchronizes the time in the guest operating system with the time on the host

When Kali is installed it is able to detect whether is its installed in a virtual machine, and should then enable the VMtools package as part of the install. However, there may be some occasions where you need to reinstall the vmtools manually. Luckily this is a fairly quick and easy process, and as this is a virtual machine, you can take a virtual machine snapshot to give yourself a great way to revert the change if needed!

Note, if you do have VMtools installed already on Kali, but are experiencing an issue, its worth restarting the service first before proceeding with a reinstall:

$ sudo restart-vm-tools

If you need to reinstall, read on…

First, it is recommended to ensure your Kali Linux system is fully updated. Next run the following to manually install the open vm tools package.

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

And that’s it! Once your system restarts, vmtools should be installed on Kali and working as expected.