Upgrading a VMware Installation

To upgrade the VMware application you also use the install command. The installation detects the existence of VMware files and queries whether you want to upgrade.

Note that if you do upgrade, the prior version of VMware is deleted first. Two versions of VMware cannot exist simultaneously on the same computer; to upgrade the earlier version must be replaced with the newer version.

Also note that the standard upgrade uses the same locations as the previous installation. You must run a custom installation if you need to change any of the locations of VMware files.

To upgrade to a new version of VMware:
  1. Make sure that no VMs are currently running.
  2. Become root:

    3. su

  3. Move to the directory where you installed VMware.
  4. Run the install program.

A sample script for an upgrade follows.

install.pl

An existing distribution of VMware has been detected.

Would you like to upgrade VMware? (yes/no) [yes] yes

This question only appears if the install script detects the presence of the file /etc/vmware/locations. The presence of this file indicates that VMware for Linux has been installed once.

If you answer No, the installation script assumes that you do not wish to upgrade at this time. The installation is cancelled.

Stopping VM services: vmmon vmnet-bridge vmnet-dhcpd vmnet

Upgrading BINDIR with /usr/local/bin

Upgrading LIBDIR with /usr/local/lib/vmware

Upgrading MANDIR with /usr/local/man

Upgrading INITDIR with /etc/rc.d

Upgrading NETWORKING with yes

Upgrading VNET_HOSTONLY with yes

Upgrading VNET_HOSTONLY_NETWORK with 192.168.1

Upgrading VNET_HOSTONLY_NETMASK with 255.255.255.0

[...License Agreement info...]

The boot-time init script will be stored under /etc/rc.d.

This is the location of the script that loads the vmware kernel modules on reboot.

Finding an installable vmmon module

No exact match for vmmon-up-2.0.36. Checking for working alternatives.

Module 'vmmon-up-2.0.32' detected to work correctly

Finding an installable vmnet module

No exact match for vmnet-up-2.0.36. Checking for working alternatives.

Module 'vmnet-up-2.0.32' detected to work correctly

Configuring vmnet1 to use network 192.168.1 and mask 255.255.255.0.

Creating /etc/vmware/vmnet1.conf for vmnet-dhcpd

Creating empty leases file /etc/vmware/vmnet1.leases for vmnet-dhcpd

Starting VM services: vmmon vmnet vmnet-bridge vmnet-dhcpd

Installation successful