How to share a folder between the VMware host and guest?

If you need to share a holder between your Windows host and Linux guest, you may use native VMware folder sharing available on VMware Workstation or VMware Player. To allow folder sharing, you must install VMware Tools on the guest operating system. I've used a VMware Player to demonstrate the configuration options, but WMware Workstation 8 will follow the similar steps.

Prerequisites
■ VMware Tools installer is written in Perl, verify that Perl is installed in the guest operating system.

1. Go to Virtual Machine -> Virtual Machine Settings ....

2. Go to Options tab, and create a shared holder.

3. Login to Guest operating system, and install necessary RPM packages.

// Install gcc and kernel-devel packages
# yum install gcc kernel-devel
// Verify running kernel matches the kernel headers
# uname -r    // Running Kernel
# rpm -q kernel-devel  // Installed kernel headers
// If running kernel and installed kernel headers don't match, upgrade them.
# yum upgrade kernel kernel-devel

4. Install or Reinstall VMware Tools

5. Once the VMware Tools is installed on the guest operating system, the shared folder will be available at:

/mnt/ghfs/{share name}

6. If VMware Tools does not install automatically, you'll have to install the software manually. By performing step (4), the VMware Tools software package will be mounted on /media partition. Unpack the package, and run the install perl script.

## Login as a root user
# cd /root
# tar xfz "/media/VMware Tools/VMwareTools-8.8.2-590212.tar.gz"
# cd vmware-tools-distrib
# ./vmware-install.pl

*Note: You'll have to replace the version of VMwareTools mounted on your guest operating system.
** Note: If Virtual CDROM does not mount automatically, go to "Virtual Machine Settings" -> Hardware (tab) -> CD/DVD (IDE) and checkmark "Use physical drive:" radio button.