pfSens install vmtools

First, we need to install "perl" and "compat6x-i386" onto the system prior VMware Tools installation, just like other linux. But there are many catches through the path... and this guide solved all these and goes straight to the result.

--> press "8" and go to the Shell of pfsense.

We need to update the FTP path for pkg_add command, otherwise the package won't fetch (coz the pfsense FreeBSD is not so updated to FreeBSD FTP)!

setenv PACKAGEROOT "ftp://ftp.freebsd.org"

setenv PACKAGESITE "ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-7.4-release/Latest/"

Start installing packages:

pkg_add -v -r perl

pkg_add -v -r compat6x-i386

Go to VMware vsphere client, and start "Install VMware Tools" onto the pfsense-VM, as usual, we need to mount the CD-ROM in order to get the VMware Tools executable.

First, we create some tmp folders first for VMware Tools:

cd /

mkdir tmp2

mkdir tmpp

Mounting the CD-ROM to tmp2:

mount_cd9660 /dev/acd0 /tmp2

cd /tmp2

Copy the VMware Tools to tmpp, then extract the package:

cp vmware-freebsd-tools.tar.gz /tmpp

cd /tmpp

tar -zxvf vmware-freebsd-tools.tar.gz

cd vmware-tools-distrib/

Then, here is the catch, before executing the installation, we need to link the compat6x files to the proper directory for VMware Tools to find, otherwise it just doesn't work!

ln -s /usr/local/lib/compat/libm.so.4 /lib

ln -s /usr/local/lib/compat/libc.so.6 /lib

ln -s /usr/local/lib/compat/libthr.so.2 /lib

Then, start the installation, make sure you are under /vmware-tools-distrib.

chmod +x vmware-install.pl bin/vmware-config-tools.pl bin/vmware-uninstall-tools.pl

./vmware-install.pl

As usual, keep pressing "Enter", and it should work with "Enjoy" message. If so, start cleaning up and reboot:

cd /

rm -r /tmpp/

rmdir tmpp

shutdown -r now