Installing Parallels Tools in Kali Linux

Question

Problem

When trying to install Parallels Tools in my Kali Linux VM it continues to fail because Kali mounts it with the noexec option. When I run ./install it fails with a permission error.

Example

following the instructions from many places I,

sudo su or su

Make sure the DVD drive in the Linux VM is ejected: eject /dev/cdrom

Go to the Parallels Desktop menu bar > Devices > CD/DVD > Connect image… Navigate to /Applications/Parallels Desktop/Contents/Resources/Tools.

Click on prl-tools-lin.iso and click Open.

Mount the Parallels Tools image to the Linux VM: mkdir /media/cdrom

mount /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom

Make sure the disk image has been successfully mounted: ls /media/cdrom

It should list the files located on the disk:

install* installer/ install-gui* kmods/ tools/ version

Go to the Parallels Tools image and run the installation package: cd /media/cdrom

./install

This results with a permission error or telling me that the disk is already mounted on /media/cdrom0.

Question

What is the proper way to mount the tools with the exec option?

Answer 1

You're missing some basics here. The mount command must take a device and a mount path, unless the mount path is already defined in /etc/fstab in which case you can use only the mount path. Read up on with man mount or the many resources online.

In the screenshot you keep switching between cdrom and cdrom0, I'm not sure if it's just frustration and rushing, or if you expected them to be the same.

You almost got close to the answer with this command: mount -o exec /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom.
Kali mounts removable media with the noexec option, so you cannot execute any files on the CD image. Despite many tutorials telling you to unmount and mount the image again, you can actually remount in one command. Although you do need to get the syntax of the mount command right ;)

Without further ado:
mount -o remount,defaults,ro,exec /dev/sr0 /media/cdrom
The options used are:
remount - remount in place
defaults - because I don't want to bother with all the details
ro - read-only, it's a CDROM
exec - allow execution of files on this mount point.