VMTools and VMXNET3 working on pfSense 2.1 on x64

MrRocco

I finally got VMXNET3 drivers and VMTools running successfully in my pfSense 2.1 VM.

NOTE: The VMTools "package" install does NOT allow for proper VMXNET3!!!

I found the most useful article here: http://pastebin.com/kQMiqwF3

However, I changed those instructions just a tad to match names correctly. Here is what I did:

In the vSphere Client program or console window you need to "Inventory->Virtual Mahine->Guest->Install/Upgrade VMware Tools" before starting this.

setenv PACKAGEROOT "ftp://ftp.freebsd.org"
setenv PACKAGESITE "ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-8.3-release/Latest/"

pkg_add -r perl
pkg_add -r compat6x-amd64

mount_cd9660 /dev/acd0 /mnt
cd /tmp
tar zxvf /mnt/vmware-freebsd-tools.tar.gz
cd vmware-tools-distrib
./vmware-install.pl -d

To make it work every time, you'll have to modify the file /etc/rc to search for additional libraries
within /usr/local/lib/compat/ folder too. Open it with your favourite text editor and locate the line

  /sbin/ldconfig -elf /usr/lib /usr/local/lib /lib
and append the previously specified directory at the end, turning it into

  /sbin/ldconfig -elf /usr/lib /usr/local/lib /lib /usr/local/lib/compat

I'm just posting this again to maybe lead people away from the older posts which can distract you a bit.

NOTE: If you have traffic shaping configured you MIGHT run into crashes after adding VMXNET3 interfaces. YMMV

NOTE: If you run the auto updater it can and sometimes will stomp on the changes in /etc/rc causing the tools to not load the next time. Reapply the fix to /etc/rc as needed!

asterix

Were you able to get vmxnet3 drivers working on 2.0.2/3 ?

For me vmxnet2 works with no issues but vmxnet3 comes up as not detected. This is with the latest 2.0.3 version.