[SOLVED] Open-VM-Tools

[nspritz]

Vmxnet3 driver working well in ESXi-5.5 for me, but would like to see complete open-vmtools pkg included in next build.
Any plans for this?

[franco]

I will see if I can squeeze that into today's 15.1.7.1. If all goes well, after upgrade to that version you'll be able to install it manually:

# pkg install open-vm-tools-nox11

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll let you know soon.

Edit: build was successful, please let me know if it works for you after upgrading.

[nspritz]

I downloaded and installed open-vm-tools without any problems, however, the modules do not start on boot after enabling in /etc/rc.local (as per installer instructions):
----------------------------------------------------
vmware_guest_vmblock_enable="YES"
vmware_guest_vmhgfs_enable="YES"
vmware_guest_vmmemctl_enable="YES"
vmware_guest_vmxnet_enable="YES"
vmware_guestd_enable="YES"
----------------------------------------------------

kldstat does not list VM modules either:

Id Refs Address            Size     Name
1    1 0xffffffff80200000 1f98850  kernel
...

Any suggestions?

[franco]

We have a custom rc system that dates back to m0n0wall. You need to manually start the service using with this or hook it into /usr/local/etc/rc for reboot persistency:

# /usr/local/etc/rc.d/vmware-guestd start

Which may or may not work by default. I provided the packages and I realise more work needs to be done here. I can't prioritise this on my TODO list, but I will do everything I can to help the efforts to set this up in OPNsense automatically and push the code into a release when it is ready.

[nspritz]

Thanks again for the speedy response! That did the trick  ;D
Vmtools now showing as "Running" in the ESXi console, and starting up on guest reboot.

Able to shutdown/restart guest, but suspend is greyed-out. I can live with that in my test environment ;)
Will investigate the suspend option from the ESX side and update post once I have answers.

--System Config--
ESXi 5.5-2068190
OPNsense VM Guest OS: FreeBSD (64bit)
--

[franco]

Glad to hear that, please keep me posted on the suspend! :)

Is it okay if I mark this as SOLVED?

[nspritz]

Will do Franco, and yes; issue resolved for me.
Keep up the great work  ;)

[weust]

I just set up ESXi 6.0.0 and got OPNsense running great with the VMXNet 3 NICs.
Speedtest of my ISP shows I get my full 200Mbit/20Mbit speeds.

Regarding the open-vm-tools, are they for a specific ESX version or just general tools?

Edit: open-vm-tools-nox11 seems to work fine for ESXi 6.0.0 as far as I can see right now.

[franco]

Yeah, it's a general layer. I don't think the API changes much, but if it does then the tools are updated too. Should always support all available versions.

[weust]

For quick reference, I ran the following lines:

Code Select Expand

# /usr/local/etc/rc.d/vmware-guestd onestart
# /usr/local/etc/rc.d/vmware-kmod onestart

The -kmod enables some extra's it seems.
The onestart is needed as the _enable lines aren't in the rc.conf.

[nspritz]

Just applied the 15.1.8.2 update, and it seems to have wiped our my manual vmtools startup entries in rc.
Will the rc be persistent in future builds?

[franco]

That's indented to keep the system consistent. To solve this we'd either add a custom file like /usr/local/etc/rc.local which is included from /usr/local/etc/rc or create a correct packages plugin system around the new GUI. I do not believe in overrides as they can be easily used to deploy exploits or hide mistakes. We are working on the second solution, but it takes time till 15.7 (July) to have something that works as expected.