Enable automatic VMware tools upgrades for virtual machines in Intelligent Infrastructure

Virtual machines (VMs) in the Intelligent Infrastructure environment must have installed and up-to-date VMware tools in order to remain in compliance with Service Level Expectations. However, without a prompt or reminder to manually check the version, your VMware tools can become outdated. To help alleviate this issue, enable automatic updates at power cycle.

Enabling automatic updates allows VMware tools to check for newer versions of the software every time the VM reboots. (It checks against the vCenter environment, and doesn't require the VM's OS to have a public IP.) If it sees a newer version available, it will attempt to install it.

As with any automated process, there is the chance that something will fail/error during the process. However, this is rather rare and usually involves some other complicated process taking place on the VM at the same time. While there is a risk, the only observed impact of a failure has been that an administrator must manually reinstall VMware tools.

To enable automatic updates of VMware tools:

1. Open the vSphere client.
2. Under VMs and Templates, find and select the desired VM.
3. Right-click the VM name, and click Edit Settings.
4. At the top of the resulting window, select VM Options.
5. In the options on the left-hand side, expand VMware Tools.
6. In Tools Upgrades, check the box next to Check and upgrade VMWare Tools before each power on.
7. Click OK to enable.

When you reboot the OS for your VM, it should check and attempt to automatically upgrade VMware tools.