Installing VMware Tools in FreeBSD 6.2

1. Install software needed by VMware Tools

  1. Check if perl is installed in the VM 
    perl -v
  2. If If perl is not installed, run: 
    pkg_add -r perl

2. Prepare and install VMware Tools

Choose one of a), b), c) or d).

a) If you are running the VM inside VMware Workstation 5.5

  1. From VMware Workstation: go to VM> Install VMware Tools
  2. From the VM: mount the virtual cd drive 
    mount /cdrom/
  3. Extract VMware Tools to /tmp/ 
    tar -C /tmp -zxvf /cdrom/vmware-freebsd-tools.tar.gz
  4. Unmount the virtual cd drive 
    umount /cdrom/
  5. Now run the installer 
    cd /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib
./vmware-install.pl
  6. When asked Do you want to run vmware-config-tools.pl?, answer “Yes”.

b) If you have VMware-workstation-5.5.3-34685.tar.gz on disk

  1. Make sure VMware-workstation-5.5.3-34685.tar.gz is on disk inside the VM.
  2. Extract the VMware Tools iso 
    tar --strip-components=3 -zxvf VMware-workstation-5.5.3-34685.tar.gz \
vmware-distrib/lib/isoimages/freebsd.iso
  3. Create a temporary mount point 
    mkdir /mnt/vmtools-temp
  4. Prepare to mount the image 
    mdconfig -a -t vnode -f freebsd.iso -u 1
  5. Do the mount 
    mount -t cd9660 /dev/md1 /mnt/vmtools-temp
  6. Copy VMware Tools from the mount 
    cp /mnt/vmtools-temp/vmware-freebsd-tools.tar.gz /tmp/
  7. Extract VMware Tools to /tmp/ 
    tar -C /tmp -zxvf /mnt/vmtools-temp/vmware-freebsd-tools.tar.gz
  8. Tidy up 
    umount /mnt/vmtools-temp
mdconfig -d -u md1
rmdir /mnt/vmtools-temp
rm freebsd.iso
  9. Now run the installer 
    cd /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib
./vmware-install.pl
  10. When asked Do you want to run vmware-config-tools.pl?, answer “Yes”.

c) If you have vmware-freebsd-tools.tar.gz on disk

  1. Extract VMware Tools to /tmp/ 
    tar -C /tmp -zxvf vmware-freebsd-tools.tar.gz
  2. Now run the installer 
    cd /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib
./vmware-install.pl
  3. When asked Do you want to run vmware-config-tools.pl?, answer “Yes”.

d) If you cannot do any of these

  1. Download VMware Workstation Trial (free) from
    http://www.vmware.com/download/ws/
  2. Go to If you have VMware-workstation-5.5.3-34685.tar.gz on disk, above.