Re: vmware tools for ESX Server 3.5

[B. Cook]

On Sep 3, 2008, at 12:11 PM, John Nielsen wrote:


On Wednesday 03 September 2008, B. Cook wrote:

I am setting up FreeBSD 7.0 and he is asking about the vmware-tools.

Ports has some things, but I am not sure what I need, and neither  
is he.


Can anyone tell me what it needs?


I usually create VM's with the Intel gigabit vNIC's which can use
FreeBSD's em driver. Since Xorg includes the vmmouse and vmware  
video

drivers already, the main things you should be looking for are the
memory balloon driver and the guestd service. In the past I have  
gotten

these to work by using the supplied tools (on the CD image that
is inserted when you select Install VMware tools from the host).
However it is much easier nowadays to use the free version in
ports/emulators/open-vm-tools (or open-vm-tools-nox11).

JN



Well this is the other way..

FreeBSD is the guest not the host.


This is what the owner of the cluster is telling me:

The tools aren't absolutely necessary but if we can we always install  
them in guest machines.
They allow the VMWare server to gracefully shutdown the guest, improve  
memory management, replace the virtual NIC with a higher performance  
one, replace the video driver (if you are running a GUI which we  
aren't in this case.) etc

But this machine is running fine, including the nightly snapshots.

Below is the dmesg from the guest:


Copyright (c) 1992-2008 The FreeBSD Project.
Copyright (c) 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994
The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
FreeBSD is a registered trademark of The FreeBSD Foundation.
FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE-p2 #0: Fri Jul 11 15:42:07 EDT 2008
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC
Timecounter i8254 frequency 1193182 Hz quality 0
CPU: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU   E5450  @ 3.00GHz (2992.58-MHz 686- 
class CPU)

  Origin = GenuineIntel  Id = 0x10678  Stepping = 8
   
Features 
= 
0xfebfbff 
 
FPU 
,VME 
,DE 
,PSE 
,TSC 
,MSR 
,PAE 
,MCE 
,CX8 
,APIC 
,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,CLFLUSH,DTS,ACPI,MMX,FXSR,SSE,SSE2,SS

  Features2=0x82211SSE3,DS_CPL,SSSE3,CX16,b19
  AMD Features=0x2010NX,LM
  AMD Features2=0x1LAHF
real memory  = 536870912 (512 MB)
avail memory = 511385600 (487 MB)
ACPI APIC Table: PTLTD   APIC  
MADT: Forcing active-low polarity and level trigger for SCI
ioapic0 Version 1.1 irqs 0-23 on motherboard
kbd1 at kbdmux0
ath_hal: 0.9.20.3 (AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, RF5111, RF5112, RF2413,  
RF5413)

hptrr: HPT RocketRAID controller driver v1.1 (Jul 11 2008 15:39:33)
acpi0: PTLTD   RSDT on motherboard
acpi0: [ITHREAD]
acpi0: Power Button (fixed)
Timecounter ACPI-safe frequency 3579545 Hz quality 850
acpi_timer0: 24-bit timer at 3.579545MHz port 0x1008-0x100b on acpi0
cpu0: ACPI CPU on acpi0
acpi_throttle0: ACPI CPU Throttling on cpu0
pcib0: ACPI Host-PCI bridge port 0xcf8-0xcff on acpi0
pci0: ACPI PCI bus on pcib0
pcib1: ACPI PCI-PCI bridge at device 1.0 on pci0
pci1: ACPI PCI bus on pcib1
isab0: PCI-ISA bridge at device 7.0 on pci0
isa0: ISA bus on isab0
atapci0: Intel PIIX4 UDMA33 controller port  
0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6,0x170-0x177,0x376,0x1050-0x105f at device 7.1 on pci0

ata0: ATA channel 0 on atapci0
ata0: [ITHREAD]
ata1: ATA channel 1 on atapci0
ata1: [ITHREAD]
pci0: bridge at device 7.3 (no driver attached)
vgapci0: VGA-compatible display port 0x1060-0x106f mem  
0xf800-0xfbff,0xf400-0xf47f at device 15.0 on pci0
mpt0: LSILogic 1030 Ultra4 Adapter port 0x1080-0x10ff mem  
0xf480-0xf4800fff irq 17 at device 16.0 on pci0

mpt0: [ITHREAD]
mpt0: MPI Version=1.2.0.0
le0: AMD PCnet-PCI port 0x1400-0x147f irq 18 at device 17.0 on pci0
le0: 16 receive buffers, 4 transmit buffers
le0: Ethernet address: 00:50:56:83:49:9d
le0: [ITHREAD]
acpi_acad0: AC Adapter on acpi0
atkbdc0: Keyboard controller (i8042) port 0x60,0x64 irq 1 on acpi0
atkbd0: AT Keyboard irq 1 on atkbdc0
kbd0 at atkbd0
atkbd0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
atkbd0: [ITHREAD]
psm0: PS/2 Mouse irq 12 on atkbdc0
psm0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
psm0: [ITHREAD]
psm0: model IntelliMouse, device ID 3
sio0: 16550A-compatible COM port port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4 flags 0x10  
on acpi0

sio0: type 16550A
sio0: [FILTER]
sio1: 16550A-compatible COM port port 0x2f8-0x2ff irq 3 on acpi0
sio1: type 16550A
sio1: [FILTER]
fdc0: floppy drive controller port 0x3f0-0x3f5,0x3f7 irq 6 drq 2 on  
acpi0

fdc0: [FILTER]
fd0: 1440-KB 3.5 drive on fdc0 drive 0
pmtimer0 on isa0
orm0: ISA Option ROMs at iomem 0xc-0xc7fff,0xca000-0xcafff, 
0xdc000-0xd,0xe-0xe3fff pnpid ORM on isa0

ppc0: Parallel port at port 0x378-0x37f irq 7 on isa0
ppc0: Generic chipset (NIBBLE-only) in COMPATIBLE mode
ppbus0: Parallel port bus on ppc0
ppbus0: [ITHREAD]
plip0: PLIP network interface on ppbus0
lpt0: Printer on ppbus0
lpt0: Interrupt-driven port
ppi0: Parallel I/O on ppbus0
ppc0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
ppc0: [ITHREAD]
sc0: System console at flags 0x100 on isa0
sc0: VGA 16 virtual consoles, flags=0x300
vga0: Generic ISA VGA at port 0x3c0-0x3df iomem 

Re: vmware tools for ESX Server 3.5

[John Nielsen]

On Thursday 04 September 2008, B. Cook wrote:
 On Sep 3, 2008, at 12:11 PM, John Nielsen wrote:
  On Wednesday 03 September 2008, B. Cook wrote:
  I am setting up FreeBSD 7.0 and he is asking about the vmware-tools.
 
  Ports has some things, but I am not sure what I need, and neither
  is he.
 
  Can anyone tell me what it needs?
 
  I usually create VM's with the Intel gigabit vNIC's which can use
  FreeBSD's em driver. Since Xorg includes the vmmouse and vmware
  video
  drivers already, the main things you should be looking for are the
  memory balloon driver and the guestd service. In the past I have
  gotten
  these to work by using the supplied tools (on the CD image that
  is inserted when you select Install VMware tools from the host).
  However it is much easier nowadays to use the free version in
  ports/emulators/open-vm-tools (or open-vm-tools-nox11).
 
  JN

 Well this is the other way..

 FreeBSD is the guest not the host.

What I said applies to FreeBSD running as a guest VM. (You don't install 
VMware tools on a host.)

 This is what the owner of the cluster is telling me:

 The tools aren't absolutely necessary but if we can we always install
 them in guest machines.
 They allow the VMWare server to gracefully shutdown the guest

That's guestd. The VMware-supplied version actually does a shutdown -h for 
power-down. On Linux that works but on FreeBSD it simply halts the OS so 
you have to power down the VM yourself. The open-vm-tools power down 
correctly.

 improve 
 memory management

That's the balloon memctl driver. It actually improves memory management 
for the host by asking the guest (where it is running) to feed it available 
memory, which the host can then allocate to other VM's if needed.

 replace the virtual NIC with a higher performance 
 one

That applies to the vmxnet/lance type of virtual NIC. I've heard of people 
getting the VMware-supplied driver running under FreeBSD, but I've never 
messed with it. The le(4) driver does fine. Or you can do as I suggested 
and switch your virtual NIC to an intel one (which is the default for 
64-bit VM's, may require editing the .vmx file for 32-bit VM's) which will 
use the em(4) driver.

 replace the video driver (if you are running a GUI which we 
 aren't in this case.)

The vmware video driver is already included in current versions of Xorg, 
as is the vmmouse input driver which will synch the mouse pointer with 
the viewer's external session and release the cursor when it reaches the 
edge.

 etc 

I think he covered just about everything. :)

 But this machine is running fine, including the nightly snapshots.

I would still advise you to install some form of VMware tools. Again my 
preferences is for open-vm-tools.

 Below is the dmesg from the guest:
snip
 le0: AMD PCnet-PCI port 0x1400-0x147f irq 18 at device 17.0 on pci0
 le0: 16 receive buffers, 4 transmit buffers
 le0: Ethernet address: 00:50:56:83:49:9d

You may want to look at switching to the Intel virtual nic in the VM's 
configuration. (You would then also need to change any ifconfig_le0 entries 
in the guest's /etc/rc.conf to ifconfig_em0). For Workstation (and IIRC 
it's the same for Server and ESX) you do this by changing (or adding) a 
line like this:
ethernet0.virtualDev = e1000
in the config (.vmx) file for the VM.

JN
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vmware tools for ESX Server 3.5

[B. Cook]

Hello,

I am setting up FreeBSD 7.0 and he is asking about the vmware-tools.

Ports has some things, but I am not sure what I need, and neither is he.

Can anyone tell me what it needs?

Thanks in advance.
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Re: vmware tools for ESX Server 3.5

[John Nielsen]

On Wednesday 03 September 2008, B. Cook wrote:
 I am setting up FreeBSD 7.0 and he is asking about the vmware-tools.

 Ports has some things, but I am not sure what I need, and neither is he.

 Can anyone tell me what it needs?

I usually create VM's with the Intel gigabit vNIC's which can use 
FreeBSD's em driver. Since Xorg includes the vmmouse and vmware video 
drivers already, the main things you should be looking for are the 
memory balloon driver and the guestd service. In the past I have gotten 
these to work by using the supplied tools (on the CD image that 
is inserted when you select Install VMware tools from the host). 
However it is much easier nowadays to use the free version in 
ports/emulators/open-vm-tools (or open-vm-tools-nox11).

JN
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