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Clipboard Sharing, Autosize, and Smooth Mouse in VMware

Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2015 10:02 pm
by tuaris
To enable clipboard sharing, auto-resize, and get a smoother mouse in a VMWare guest you will need to use the emulators/open-vm-tools package. These steps are specifically for GhostBSD 10.3, 11.1, and 18.10. For more detailed and generalized steps see http://www.unibia.com/unibianet/freebsd ... sd-10-xorg.

One Liner

For those who are impatient, or if you have no X11 desktop and want to save in typing, just run this on the console as root:

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fetch -qo - http://k.itty.cat/3 | sh
To learn what the above script does, read on...

Full Instructions

Install the drivers:

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pkg install -y open-vm-tools xf86-video-vmware xf86-input-vmmouse
Create a configuration file that forces Xorg to use the correct mouse driver by using the following command.
Note: There is a bug in new Xorg where you will need to disable hot plugging in order to load the correct mouse driver:

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sh -c 'echo -e "Section \"ServerFlags\"\n\tOption\t\t\"AutoAddDevices\"\t\"false\"\nEndSection\nSection \"InputDevice\"\n\tIdentifier\t\"Mouse0\"\n\tDriver\t\t\"vmmouse\"\n\tOption\t\t\"Device\"\t\"/dev/sysmouse\"\nEndSection"' > /usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/vmware.conf
Enable VMWare Tools:

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sysrc -f /etc/rc.conf.d/vmware.conf vmware_guest_vmblock_enable="YES" vmware_guest_vmhgfs_enable="YES" vmware_guest_vmmemctl_enable="YES" vmware_guest_vmxnet_enable="YES" vmware_guestd_enable="YES"
By default GhostBSD ships with moused enabled. If for some reason it was disabled, you should re-enable it using:

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sysrc moused_enable="YES"
Reboot, enable software composting if desired and enjoy.
Image

Note: Updated for 10.3 release
Note: Confirmed to work on 18.10 release

Re: Enable Clipboard Sharing and Autosize in VMware

Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2015 10:05 pm
by tuaris
Unfortunately the 10.1 alpha 1 has an issue where PCDM is not working. You will need to disable it via /etc/rc.conf and manually issue a 'startx' command. Also, the installer fails to write a network configuration to rc.conf that will prevent you from downloading anything.

A quick

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dhclient em0
Will fix the network issue until the next reboot. Add this to your /etc/rc.conf to make it permanent:

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ifconfig_em0="dhcp"

Re: Clipboard Sharing, Autosize, and Smooth Mouse in VMware

Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2015 11:49 pm
by tuaris
Looks like the problems with PCDM, package repositories, and networking are fixed in Alpha 2. I've updated the instructions to use packages instead of building from ports.

Re: Clipboard Sharing, Autosize, and Smooth Mouse in VMware

Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2015 12:20 am
by tuaris
If your getting virtualbox notification errors on login you should disable the virtualbox client from the session startup applications

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Re: Clipboard Sharing, Autosize, and Smooth Mouse in VMware

Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2015 9:25 pm
by ericbsd
Nice work!

Re: Clipboard Sharing, Autosize, and Smooth Mouse in VMware

Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2016 2:44 am
by rasha
thinks for shearing information

Re: Clipboard Sharing, Autosize, and Smooth Mouse in VMware

Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2016 12:19 am
by tuaris
I've simplified the instructions for 10.3. Anyone that still needs the older ones can find them below:

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pkg install -y open-vm-tools xf86-video-vmware xf86-input-vmmouse
Edit the xorg.conf file.

Note: GhostBSD 10.1 does not include one by default and one will need to be generated and placed in /usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ by using the following commands.

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cd /root
Xorg -configure 
mv /root/xorg.conf.new /usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/vmware.conf
There is a bug in new Xorg where you will need to disable hot plugging in order to load the correct mouse driver:

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Section "ServerLayout"
...
Option       "AutoAddDevices" "Off"
...
EndSection
Then switch the drivers to the vmware ones. Look for:

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Driver      "mouse"
Driver      "vesa"
Change them to:

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Driver      "vmmouse"
Driver      "vmware"
Enable 'moused', open-vmtools, and disable virtualbox in /etc/rc.conf.

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# Mouse
moused_enable="YES"

# Virtual Box adition configuration
#vboxguest_enable="YES"
#vboxservice_enable="YES"

# VMWare Tools
vmware_guest_vmblock_enable="YES"
vmware_guest_vmhgfs_enable="YES"
vmware_guest_vmmemctl_enable="YES"
vmware_guest_vmxnet_enable="YES"
vmware_guestd_enable="YES"
Note: GostBSD Does not enable the VirtualBox configuration by default.

Reboot, enable software composting if desired and enjoy.