Shrinking Linux virtual disks on OSX VMWare fusion

So your virtual disk is taking up tonnes of space - despite the fact it's not that big when you check its size in the Virtual machine. It's annoying that VMWare images don't do better auto shrinking...

Anyway I tried to run the vmware-tools which I installed (after a bit of jiggery-pokery) and it comes up with a 'Shrink' tab but no disks appear in the list to shrink?! Any suggestion as to how to get disks to show up there are welcome but I couldn't find much on the web about it...

So instead I looked about and the best way is to take the following steps:

1. Start your VM OS up and optionally remove any cruft. At least run:
   

   sudo apt-get autoclean

2. To prepare for the shrinking process run:
   

   sudo cat /dev/zero > zero;sync;sleep 1;sudo rm zero

   This fills all remaining space on your virtual disk with a file full of zeros so the space can be reclaimed in the shrinking step.
   Note: Your hard disk WILL NOT fill up as the vmdk images do actually optimise the storage of files containing zeros
3. Shutdown VM OS and delete any snapshots available then Quit VMWare Fusion
4. To start the shrinking process in OSX run (Replacing path_to_your/disk with something like '/Users/username/Documents/Virtual Machines/Ubuntu/Ubuntu.vmdk'):
   

   cd '/Applications/VMware Fusion.app/Contents/Library'
   ./vmware-vdiskmanager -d path_to_your/disc.vmdk
   ./vmware-vdiskmanager -k path_to_your/disc.vmdk
   

   The first command defragments the disk, whilst the second actually does the shrinking.
   (Note: The directory for 'cd' for 3.X of VMware Fusion was:
   

   /Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/) 

[27jan12: Updated for VMware Fusion 4.X]