Automating VMWare Player installs with expect
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Automating VMWare Player installs with expect

Jurjen Bokma

December 2009

  1. Getting VMPlayer

    Fetch it from the VMWare site, after submitting all your personal data, family tree three generations upwards and proof of vaccination, registering, yadayadayada. This is still tedious.

  2. Installing expect and autoexpect

    sudo apt-get install expect expect-dev

    With expect-dev comes autoexpect...

    gzip -dc /usr/share/doc/expect-dev/examples/expect_autoexpect.gz > autoexpect
    chmod u+x ./autoexpect

  3. Running the VMPlayer installer under autoexpect supervision

    sudo ./autoexpect sh ./VMware-Player-3.0.0-203739.x86_64.bundle --console --custom

    This creates ./script.exp

  4. Uninstalling the VMWare player

    sudo vmware-installer -u vmware-player

  5. Installing VMWare Player - "Look Ma no hands!"

    Now comes the fun part:

    sudo ./script.exp

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