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Installing VMware Tools in a FreeBSD Guest Operating System

VMware Tools for FreeBSD include:

To install VMware Tools for FreeBSD:

  1. Power on the virtual machine.
  2. Prepare your virtual machine to install VMware Tools by selecting Settings > VMware Tools Install.

    Note: The following steps all take place inside the virtual machine, not on the host computer.

  3. As root, mount the VMware Tools virtual CD-ROM image, copy its contents to /tmp, then unmount it:

    Note: You do not use an actual CD-ROM to install VMware Tools, nor do you need to download the CD-ROM image or burn a physical CD-ROM of this image file. The VMware GSX Server software contains an ISO image that looks like a CD-ROM to your guest operating system. This image contains all the files needed to install VMware Tools in your guest operating system.

    su
    mount /cdrom
    cp /cdrom/vmware-freebsd-tools.tar.gz /tmp
    umount /cdrom

  4. Untar the VMware Tools tar file in /tmp and install it:
    cd /tmp
    tar zxf vmware-freebsd-tools.tar.gz
    cd vmware-freebsd-tools
    ./install.pl

  5. Start X and your graphical environment if they are not started yet.
  6. In an X terminal, launch the VMware Tools background application:
    vmware-toolbox &

You may run VMware Tools as root or as a normal user. To shrink virtual disks, you should run VMware Tools as root (su -).

By default, the resolution of the X server is set to the resolution of the screen as determined at install time. If you wish to change this, you can edit the configuration file.

Note: In a FreeBSD 4.5 guest operating system, sometimes VMware Tools does not start after you install VMware Tools, reboot the guest operating system or start VMware Tools on the command line in the guest. An error message appears:
Shared object "libc.so.3" not found.

The required library was not installed. This does not happen with full installations of FreeBSD 4.5, but does occur for minimal installations. To fix the problem of the missing library, complete the following steps:

  1. Insert and mount the FreeBSD 4.5 installation CD or access the ISO image file.

  2. Change directories and run the install script.
    cd /cdrom/compat3x
    ./install.sh

To configure the X server for different resolution:

  1. Locate the XF86Config file. This file stores X server configuration information and is typically located in the directory /etc/X11, or sometimes in /etc.
  2. Look for the line:
       Section "Screen"
    and under this is a line that sets the resolution:
        Modes "1280x1024"

  3. Change this line to the desired resolution. There are several example mode lines, which are commented out.

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