from: http://fusion.infofabrics.com/Home/enviornment-infrastructure/personal-cloud-using-esxi
VMWare can exploit yum repository.
1. Import public key for yum repository. Execute this as root
# rpm –import http://packages.vmware.com/tools/VMWARE-PACKAGING-GPG-KEY.pub
2. CentOS stores yum repository definition in /etc/yum.repos.d
Create a file named, vmtools.repo and populate it with following contents
[vmware-tools]
name=VMware Tools for CentOS $releasever – $basearch
baseurl=http://packages.vmware.com/tools/esx/4.0/rhel5/x86_64
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
In the above example, I’ve used baseurl with “4.0” as ESXi version & x86_64 for 64 bit CentOS. This can be different for you.
3. Run yum install command to install VMWare tools on your CentOS Linux server.
# yum install vmtools
You should see installation log on your screen at attached on this page “yum_vmware-tools.install.log”, with one prompt for vmware package installation.
4. Restart CentOS linux server.
GOOD NEWS, post CentOS restart if you go to vSphere vmserver instance -> console you don’t have to press Ctrl+Alt every time you want to switch between Linux console & Windows OS 🙂 . And it’s fast too.