Can't install VMWare Tools on FreeBSD 11.0

[carrion]

I've installed FreeBSD 11.0 as a guest in Fusion, but I am unable to install VMWare Tools. The first attempt ended with a message to re-run the program after installing the compat6x-amd64 package.

Installing the compat6x-amd64 package resulted in a message to add COMPAT_FREEBSD6 to my kernel config and a link to instructions on configuring and rebuilding the FreeBSD kernel. It also noted that the package was no longer maintained and was likely to have problems.

I did not want to rebuild my kernel for a package that might be broken, so I simply tried installing VMWare Tools again. This time it failed when the guest memory manager service failed when starting the VMWare Tools Services.

Do I really need to reconfigure and rebuild my kernel to install VMWare Tools? Does the unsupported compat6x-amd64 package work for FreeBSD 11.0? Is there another way to get VMWare Tools installed?

I should add that I suspect FreeBSD 11 is too recent to be supported, but I've found the compatibility guide (VMware Compatibility Guide - System Search) to be absolutely incomprehensible for determining what guest OSes are supported. It looks like some older versions of FreeBSD _might_ be supported, but I just can't tell.

Thanks for any help with this.

[carrion]

Through trial and error I've learned that FreeBSD 10.3 appears to be supported. VMWare Tools installed without error, though I haven't tested it very heavily yet.

[jurak]

I am in the same situation, i am not able to install vmware tools even linked to obsolete compat6 libs. From compatibility matrix looks like FreeBSD 11 is not supported. Hope will be fixed, need vmware tools for integration with backup tool.

[TDrb]

vmxnet driver should be (= is) part of system, so no need to bother, vmmemctl is easy to patch (there are only cosmetic changes in system). I did it this way:

- unpack vmtools

- unpack .../vmware-tools-distrib/lib/modules/source/vmmemctl.tar

- patch os.c (see end of this post - only name of cnt 'global' var changed to vm_cnt)

- make

- make install

- now, you should have vmmemctl.ko in /boot/modules/

Install vmtools as usual, just do not let install overwrite your handmade vmmemctl.ko.

Enjoy!

TD

diff -dru os.c os.c-ORIG

--- os.c        2017-03-02 14:45:46.514684000 +0100

+++ os.c-ORIG   2016-05-23 04:26:43.000000000 +0200

@@ -223,7 +223,7 @@

unsigned long

OS_ReservedPageGetLimit(void)

{

-   return vm_cnt.v_page_count;

+   return cnt.v_page_count;

}

@@ -369,7 +369,7 @@

os_pmap_alloc(os_pmap *p) // IN

{

    /* number of pages (div. 😎 */

-   p->size = (vm_cnt.v_page_count + 7) / 8;

+   p->size = (cnt.v_page_count + 7) / 8;

    /*

     * expand to nearest word boundary