Open Virtual Machine Tools (open-vm-tools) are the open source
implementation of VMware Tools. They are a set of guest operating
system virtualization components that enhance performance and user
experience of virtual machines. As virtualization technology rapidly
becomes mainstream, each virtualization solution provider implements
their own set of tools and utilities to supplement the guest virtual
machine. However, most of the implementations are proprietary and are
tied to a specific virtualization platform.

With the Open Virtual Machine Tools project, we are hoping to solve
this and other related problems. The tools are currently composed of
kernel modules for Linux and user-space programs for all VMware
supported Unix-like guest operating systems. They provide several
useful functions like:

* File transfer between a host and guest

* Improved memory management and network performance under
virtualization

* General mechanisms and protocols for communication between host and
guests and from guest to guest