Solved: Re: vmware tools and FreeBSD on ESX4

d_barnett · ‎09-08-2009

Has anyone successfully installed vmware tools on a FreeBSD vm under ESX 4? I have a test vSphere 4.0 environment I'm practicing a 3.5 to 4.0 upgrade on before doing so on my production servers and am having trouble getting vmware-tools on FreeBSD 7.1 and 7.2 to be seen as properly working by vCenter.

Specifically, I have installed the tools from the vmware-freebsd-tool.tar file found on the VMware-tools-freebsd-116369 iso, which is the currently referenced tools package, on both FreeBSD 7.1 and 7.2 installations. This is the same installation file I've used successfully on many FreeBSD installs under 3.5.

The installer seems to install just fine, and the daemon starts as expected. But, for those virtual machines I've upgraded on the 3.5 to 4.0 hosts, vCenter (4.0) reports "VMware Tools: Not installed"

I also tried building new FreeBSD 7.1 and 7.2 virtual machines on the upgraded 4.0 hosts, and these, after the installation of vmware tools, report "VMware Tools: Out of date".

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

jlarsen · ‎09-21-2009

I just spent a week working with VMware support on this same exact issue, and we found a resolution that works.

Their official answer is that this is due to FreeBSD not being supported on versions of ESX prior to 4.0. The new freebsd.iso included with vSphere expects a Guest with hardware version 7. Becuase the machines were created before upgrading to vSphere, the hardware version is 4. The Virtual Machines also show up with a Guest OS type of "Other Linux", because FreeBSD was not an option previously.

Their solution is to uninstall the existing VM tools, and shutdown the FreeBSD Guest. Then right click on the Machine and Upgrade the Virtual Hardware. Then you'll be able to change the Guest OS type to the new option of Other > FreeBSD. Boot the machine and mount the freebsd iso and install the tools. It should show OK now. I know this sounds a little risky forcing the hardware upgrade without the tools installed, but i've done it on 4 machines so far and they're running great.

Hope this helps you out.

-Josh

View solution in original post

jlarsen · ‎09-21-2009

I just spent a week working with VMware support on this same exact issue, and we found a resolution that works.

Their official answer is that this is due to FreeBSD not being supported on versions of ESX prior to 4.0. The new freebsd.iso included with vSphere expects a Guest with hardware version 7. Becuase the machines were created before upgrading to vSphere, the hardware version is 4. The Virtual Machines also show up with a Guest OS type of "Other Linux", because FreeBSD was not an option previously.

Their solution is to uninstall the existing VM tools, and shutdown the FreeBSD Guest. Then right click on the Machine and Upgrade the Virtual Hardware. Then you'll be able to change the Guest OS type to the new option of Other > FreeBSD. Boot the machine and mount the freebsd iso and install the tools. It should show OK now. I know this sounds a little risky forcing the hardware upgrade without the tools installed, but i've done it on 4 machines so far and they're running great.

Hope this helps you out.

-Josh

d_barnett · ‎09-21-2009

Worked like a champ. Thanks a lot for your help.

massmans · ‎09-23-2009

Can you point me to where you downloaded the iso image for the tools.

lrosenman · ‎09-23-2009

You just tell ESX to "Install/upgrade" tools, and it presents it to the VM as a CD on the cdrom device.

massmans · ‎09-23-2009

Thanks.

mattpendleton · ‎09-30-2009

Thank you for this! We will try this out and report our results. We have just as many FreeBSD machines as we do Windows.

Go Gators!

nf3000 · ‎11-27-2009

freebsd ver 7.2 with this tools installed does not start from suspend. ?:|

Without tools it work.

mdri · ‎03-08-2010

Josh, your solution worked for me too, but upon the new installation of the Tools, the VMs Summary tab automatically changes from FreeBSD (64-bit) to FreeBSD (32-bit). The properties of the VM do say Other FreeBSD (64-bit), and yes, it really is running Free BSD 7.0 64 bit. This was true of ESX 4.0 and ESX 4.0U1.

Anyone else seen this, or how to get 64 bit FreeBSD to be properly identified by vCenter 4.0U1?

mosg · ‎03-12-2010

mdri i have the same problem. We bought a few weeks ago new HP server (HP Proliant DL360R06). After that we installed VMWare ESXi 4.0 U1 on that server, and started testing:

- Test host #1: FreeBSD 8.0 (64-bit), e.g. amd64, with vmware-tools installed within menu option"Install/Upgrade VMWare Tools". Result: in hosts 'Summary' tab in Guest OS line set: FreeBSD (32-bit), but all our configurations was done for (64-bit) system. And after that we found another bad moment: in hosts 'Resource Allocation' tab in 'Memory' box all host memory (after installed vmware-tools) viewed as used.

- Test host #2: FreeBSD 8.0 (32-bit), with vmware-tools and etc. Result: All Host Memory used!

I have to say, that this two test machines does not perform calculation work or allocation such a memory, but VMware vSphere Client show that they used all of there consumed RAM memory.

Question: is some one already solved this problem and may give me advice? May be we are doing something wrong?

Thanks and good luck!