I've installed the 64bit edition of Ubuntu Minimal 14.04 in a VMware Player virtual machine. Ubuntu Minimal only has a CLI (Command Line Interface), which I like, but I can't figure out how to copy/paste in the terminal. I need paste especially, because some of the links I need to run are just too long to type manually.
I've tried Ctrl+V, Ctrl+Shift+V, Shift+Insert, Ctrl+Shift+Insert, but so far no luck. How can I copy/paste in the CLI?
Best Answer
VMware Workstation 12.5.2 supports general paste (UPDATE)
By accident I noticed that the current version of Workstation (12.5.2) supports general paste. I mean paste anywhere including the Linux text console without need to have any VM tools installed. A similar function was available in Microsoft Virtual PC.
The function works by emulating key presses. This implies the following limitations:
I know about two ways how to invoke the function:
There are additional limitations:
The other and older products do not support paste outside of X Window System or without VM tools
This is a limitation of VMware products. Unfortunately most of them do not support copying and pasting in a text console of an operating system. The clipboard integration works only in the graphical user interface with working VMware Tools or open-vm-tools installed.
SSH as an alternative solution
When I work with Linux virtual machines without GUI (almost all my Linux virtual machines) I use SSH access as Eugen Rieck suggested already. As he wrote this solution allows also other very useful features. I would certainly name longer and more easily usable scrollback buffer (without need to use terminal managers like
screen
).