How to Install VMWare Tools in CentOS 5

Install software needed by VMware Tools

1. Install packages to build the kernel modules

yum install gcc kernel-devel

2. Check the running kernel matches the kernel headers

uname -r             # running kernel
rpm -q kernel-devel  # installed kernel headers

3. If the two versions do not match, run

yum -y upgrade kernel kernel-devel
reboot

4. Find out where the kernel headers are (you may need this later)

ls -d /usr/src/kernels/$(uname -r)*/include

Prepare and install VMware Tools

1. From VMware Workstation: go to VM> Install VMware Tools

2. From the VM: mount the virtual cd drive

mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/

3. Extract VMware Tools to /tmp/

tar -C /tmp -zxvf /mnt/VMwareTools-5.5.3-34685.tar.gz

4. Unmount the virtual cd drive

umount /mnt

5. Now run the installer

cd /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib
./vmware-install.pl

6. When asked Do you want to run vmware-config-tools.pl?, answer “Yes”.

VMWare Infrastructure

How To Determine Dynamic Library Dependencies For An Executable or Library File in OS X

This script uses otool -L to determine and print all dynamic library dependencies of a given executable or library file recursively and you use it like this:

$ checklibs.pl /bin/ls
   /bin/ls:
            /usr/lib/libgcc_s.1.dylib
            /usr/lib/libncurses.5.4.dylib
            /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib
   /usr/lib/libgcc_s.1.dylib:
            /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib
   /usr/lib/libncurses.5.4.dylib:
            /usr/lib/libgcc_s.1.dylib
            /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib
   /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib:
            /usr/lib/system/libmathCommon.A.dylib

Here’s the script which was written by Marc Liyanage:

#!/usr/bin/perl
#
# Written by Marc Liyanage <http://www.entropy.ch>
# use strict;
use warnings; 

my ($file) = @ARGV;
die $! unless (-f $file); 

my $libs = {};
check_libs(file => $file, libs => $libs); 

print
	map {("\n$_:\n", map {"\t$_\n"} sort {lc($a) cmp lc($b)} @{$libs->{$_}})}
	sort {lc($a) cmp lc($b)}
	grep {@{$libs->{$_}}}
	keys(%$libs);
sub check_libs {
	my (%args) = @_;
	my $libs = $args{libs};
	my @file_libs = grep {$_ ne $args{file}} grep {$_} map {/^\s+(\S+)/} qx(otool -L $args{file});
	$libs->{$args{file}} = \@file_libs;
	foreach my $lib (grep {!$libs->{$_}} @file_libs) {
		unless (-f $lib) {
			$libs->{$lib} = ['(missing)'];
			next;
		}
		check_libs(%args, file => $lib);
	}
}

In case my blog software mangles the code above, you can download the script in a plain text file by clicking here: checklibs.zip

Code

How to Determine What Program Is Listening on a Port in OS X or Linux

To determine what daemon or program is listening on a port in Linux or OS X you can use the lsof command. You need to run the command while logged in as root or if your operating system supports sudo like OS X, you can use that.

Command to run in Linux:

lsof -i -nP

Command to run in OS X:

sudo lsof -i -nP

Terminal