Installing VMware Tools on RedHat 5

[CraigD]

I have a fresh install of RedHat Enterprise Linux 5 on an ESXi box.  I do not yet have a network connection from inside the VM, and I assume this is because I do not yet have VMware Tools installed.  Since I don't have a network connection I cannot use any of the auto-updating features/commands.  So, I mounted the VMware Tools installer and copied the vmware-tools-distrib folder to my desktop.  I then launched the vmware-install.pl file.  I accept the defaults until it tells me that it cannot find the gcc binary.  The message is:

Searching for GCC...

The path "" is not valid path to the gcc binary.

Would you like to change it? [yes]

I have tried Google search after Google search to find the proper answer.  I have tried apt-get, yum, etc. etc.  If I search for "gcc" in the Package Manager I see 7 installed items with "gcc" in the name.  I have mounted the install DVD and used "rpm -ivh" to install "kernel-headers", "glibc-headers", "glibc-devel", and "gcc".  I then re-tried the VMware Tools install.  Same result.  I have browsed and searched all over the hard disk and have tried typing the path to anything that looks remotely like "gcc" to no avail.  I still get:

Searching for GCC...

The path "" is not valid path to the gcc binary.

Would you like to change it? [yes]

I told it to go ahead (answered "no") and it installed several parts of VMware Tools.  I now have better mouse control and good video drivers... but still no network access.  (groan) I wonder why I generally like Windows better.  I know, I know... I'm more used to it.

Anyway, please advise if you have ANY idea how I can move forward.

Thanks!

[CraigD]

Update:  The VM DOES have a NIC, but it cannot access anything (cannot browse, ping, etc.).  It has a DHCP-provided IP address, DNS servers, default gateway, etc.  All the IP information is correct.  There is a Windows VM on the same host, attached to the same vSwitch, that can access the network just fine.  I wonder if the failure of VMware Tools to completely install has anything to so with this.

[WoodyZ]

VMware Tools are not required for Network Connectivity however if you had a failure during the install I'd start by uninstalling VMware Tools, make sure all the proper dependencies exist before you install again and also make sure you have network connectivity before installing VMware Tools. (Which you of course have to have in order to install the dependencies if not available from Disc or ISO Image.)

[CraigD]

UPDATE: Will post again later when we've confirmed, but we created another machine for testing, and used VM version 4 instead of the default version 7, and things seem to be working now.  My co-worker who did the test is away from the office so I will confirm with him that nothing else was changed and provide additional follow up later.

[WoodyZ]

CraigD wrote: and used VM version 4 instead of the default version 7

Not sure what you're referring to here, whether it is a product version or hardware version and one should always include the VMware Product Name and Version when requesting help.  Also include other explicit and specific relevant information like Host OS information and Guest OS information, configuration information, etc. :smileywink:

[CraigD]

Thanks.  In my most recent post I was referring to the "VM version" as shown on the Summary tab of the VM (see below).  The Guest OS is RHEL 5, 32-bit.  The host is ESXi 4.1.0, 348481.

[RDPetruska]

Thread moved to ESXi 4 forum.

[CraigD]

It turns out that there was no network connectivity issue... we DID have network access.

However, there is a pertinent solution to a problem here.  When we had created the VM using VM "Hardware" Version 7 we could not get VMware Tools to install (see error message in original post).  The resolution to this issue was to recreate the VM using VMware Hardware Version 4. To do this you have to select Custom when initially creating the VM, and select Virtual Machine Version 4 at the screen shown below.