Open-VM-Tools don't work well any more on pfsense 2.2+

[Supermule]

This is what I get.

Not possible to do that via the ESXi GUI apparently….

[johnpoz]

well you clearly do not have tools running.

From pfsense run kldstat

[2.2.2-RELEASE][root@pfSense.local.lan]/root: kldstat
Id Refs Address            Size    Name
1  10 0xffffffff80200000 22d0f80  kernel
2    1 0xffffffff824d1000 8160    vmblock.ko
3    1 0xffffffff824da000 13680    vmhgfs.ko
4    1 0xffffffff824ee000 5630    vmxnet.ko
5    1 0xffffffff82611000 22f7    vmmemctl.ko

What does esxi say about the tools?  Oh that it is not installed - here is what it should look like if you have the tools installed openvm package.

[Supermule]

I uninstalled them and wanted the VmWare one since it gets errors on some .ko files.

Installed the package again and getting this…

[johnpoz]

your clearly not installing the correct tools.. your just installing the package from package installs right or are you trying to install with pkg install?  Or a file?

That error is something wrong - what version of pfsense are you running, and what version of esxi?

Im going to do a clean install of 2.2.2 and install the openvm package because you should not be having these problems.

edit:  Well I can see why you might be having problems
On a clean install of 2.2.2 64bit and trying to install the openvm tools package it just seems to hang on

Executing custom_php_install_command()…

And yup its still actually downloading _9 vs the package saying its _11, let me give it a bit more time and see if it every finishes, etc.

[Supermule]

pfSense  2.2.2 and ESXi 4.1U3 at test site.

I click install on the Open VM package available in the packages menu.

[johnpoz]

I don't think freebsd 10.1 is supported on esxi 4..  Pretty sure 10.1 was not available until 5.5u2 – did they back port to 4??

http://blogs.vmware.com/guestosguide/guest-os/unix-and-others/freebsd

[Supermule]

Its just installed as FreeBSD 64bit. No specific choice of OS.

Works fine and runs no issues. I just get the error in the Open Vmtools package.

[johnpoz]

dude 10.1 is not supported on that version of esxi, it works your lucky..  Run a older version of pfsense if your not going to be current with your esxi version

also see this error other than _9 being downloaded vs _11
php-fpm[77198]: /pkg_mgr_install.php: Could not open /usr/local/share/vmware-tools/tools.conf for writing

If you create the dir and file the pkg installs, shows 3rd party and running in esxi, but the ko's are not loaded when you check kldstat

Clearly the package is broken and will have to wait until its fixed.  But again freebsd 10.1 and pfsense 2.2 is not supported on that version of esxi

[Supermule]

2.1.5 vs 2.2.2.

Opne Vmtools installed on both  systems. Same version of ESXi. Serving the pfsense clusters.

I have attached screendumps.

Error began with upgrade to 2.2.2…. 2.1.5 running no issues at all. Open Vm tools shows unmanaged in 2.1.5 and ESXi 4.1U3.

[doktornotor]

@Supermule:

Error began with upgrade to 2.2.2…. 2.1.5 running no issues at all. Open Vm tools shows unmanaged in 2.1.5 and ESXi 4.1U3.

Yeah. When you take modules compiled for FreeBSD 8.3 kernel and shove them on FreeBSD 10.1 box, things don't work. Hardly surprising. The errors are damn explicit, cannot believe that totally broken packages are shipped. (Now, at least the breakage resulting from install seems to be mitigated by the fact that it's so badly broken that it actually fails to install altogether, which is a good thing, considering the state of things…  ::))

[Supermule]

Yes.

But its seems they have corrected the vmxnet.ko file error.

[doktornotor]

@Supermule:

But its seems they have corrected the vmxnet.ko file error.

Yeah. By removing the module altogether.

[EMWEE]

Guess ill wait this the package is fixed.

[Supermule]

Apparently the driver is present in 10.1 so its not needed in the tools??

@doktornotor:

@Supermule:

But its seems they have corrected the vmxnet.ko file error.

Yeah. By removing the module altogether.

[johnpoz]

freebsd 10.1 has native vmx3 support so you don't need the tools at all really other than to be able to clearly shutdown pfsense from esxi, integration with the console, etc.

I reported that is fully broken in the package thread.. Not sure on who the specific package owner/contributors are - but sure they will fix it up soon enough.

You can run pfsense 2.2.2 just fine on above 5.5u2 of esxi without any issues, and since vmx3 is part of freebsd now you don't really need to install the tools.

[cmb]

Every open issue that existed for open-vm-tools is fixed now.

[Supermule]

TOTALLY AWESOME!!

Thanks Chris. Really appreciated!

[EMWEE]

Gonna have a go on ESXI 5.5U2 and 6 ASAP.

[EMWEE]

Still cant run a custom shutdown script.

Running this custom script.

#!/usr/local/bin/php -f
        /* parse the configuration and include all functions used below */
        require_once("config.inc");
        require_once("functions.inc");
                system_halt();
?>

Dunno if vmware-tools can even run this script.

Any ideas?

[cmb]

Is there a need for a shutdown script? It shuts down the VM without one.

Did you chmod +x that php file?