Installation of vmware tools in vmware exsi based machines are pretty straight forward. We see a notification if a vm is missing one and by clicking the install vmware tools, it auto mounts the installer.

However, what if we need the iso file for automation? For example, I have been trying to explore packer for automated template creation which can be used by terraform for vm deployment.

Here the link to the answer. We choose our esxi version and operating system for which we need the vmware tools and can find iso, repo, package or installer as per our need.