CUCM 10.5 – Updating VMtools
Cisco Call Manager is an integral part of any company that runs it for all of their “voice” or telephony services. I’ll be honest… I’m always a little afraid to console in and do stuff on a CUCM server because I don’t feel like I know enough to quickly troubleshoot issues I might cause.
However that doesn’t mean that I can avoid CUCM all together. I do have to jump into a CUCM server occasionally. Like when it’s been virtualized and it’s time to update the version of VMware Tools (VMTools) that is running on it. Thankfully, that task is a lot easier than it might initially seem. I’ll demonstrate how to upgrade the VMTools on a server running CUCM v10.5.2.
In vCenter, select your CUCM server. Dropdown the ‘Actions’ menu and select ‘Guest OS’. Then click on “Install VMware Tools…”.
![](https://i0.wp.com/it.giffen.cloud/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/03/cucm.vmtools0.png?resize=482%2C319&ssl=1)
You’ll see a pop-up message, click ‘Mount’. This will make vCenter mount the VMTools iso in your virtual machine so that the guest OS can access the installer.
![](https://i0.wp.com/it.giffen.cloud/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/03/cucm.vmtools01.png?resize=574%2C374&ssl=1)
Now, login into your CUCM vm’s console as an admin, and enter the following commands.
admin: utils os secure permissive
admin: utils vmtools refresh
You will be prompted that the tools install will reboot the machine twice. Press ‘y’ and hit ‘Enter’ to continue….
![](https://i0.wp.com/it.giffen.cloud/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/03/cucm.vmtools1.png?resize=675%2C431&ssl=1)
If vmtools has not ever been installed on this vm, or if the install didn’t complete, you might see a message that stating that you need to manually restart the server. If so, enter the command it shows to finish the intsall by rebooting the server.
admin: utils system reboot
![](https://i0.wp.com/it.giffen.cloud/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/03/cucm.vmtools3.png?resize=656%2C364&ssl=1)
After the reboots are finished, log back in as admin to your CUCM server. Enter the following command.
admin: utils os secure enforce
![](https://i0.wp.com/it.giffen.cloud/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/03/cucm.vmtools2.png?resize=449%2C84&ssl=1)
That’s it! Your VMtools have been updated. The updated guest OS info should now be visible when you look at this CUCM vm in your vCenter.