Keyboard no longer works in Gnome after VMware tools is installed

S

seanx820

Running FreeBSD on a VMware cluster (Cisco UCS C-Series). Everything works great except I need vmware tools to allow co-workers to actually use the GUI (I use ssh and x11 forwarding). I install VMware tools and it seems to work but all of a sudden my keyboard does not work. I have been going through the FAQ here and I can't seem to get it working :(

I captured some logs
/var/log/Xorg.0.log and /var/log/messages

I also notice another error when the computer is booting, I am not sure where to grab that log, it says something about vmware-tools, advice would be appreciated. I was going to try a quick screen shot as it boots up but I figured the log is stored somewhere and one of the professionals on this site would help :)

Help is greatly appreciated.
 
Sounds like you're not starting hald. Make sure that's starting. And, make sure you're on the 425873,1 version of open-vm-tools.
 
So you think open-vm-tools will work on FreeBSD 9 better then the vmware-tools that comes with ESXi? This thread http://communities.vmware.com/message/1982497 seems to support your case. How do I tell which version of the port I have, I did a vi of distinfo in the open-vm-tools and got this->
Code: 
SHA256 (open-vm-tools-8.8.0-471268.tar.gz) = 642cf860c9910cd64424a588f8ac4ad500af358e5ca992862bfbd667224ff79c
SIZE (open-vm-tools-8.8.0-471268.tar.gz) = 3760851

I am going ahead and trying to install and see what happens and post the results here.
 
Does not work

So I uninstalled vmware-tools from my BSD machine then installed the open-vm-tools fromt he port directly and it does not even boot... what logs would help here? I can tell nothing works b/c my mouse and screen still act like a vmware-tools free machine (jumpy mouse, have to press control+alt to leave vmware).

Let me know what would help...
 
I meant vmware-tools does not boot, not the machine itself. It acts like no tools have been installed. I am trying installing both open-vm-tools and vmware-tool side by site b/c I was not sure if they were somehow supposed to co-exist (open-vm tools mentioned being a 'patch'...)
 
It ended up being an xorg.conf problem! Go to /etc/X11/xorg.conf and I looked at the input device and checked this against a FreeBSD 8.0 machine I had that worked fine and I found that I had no options specified on the old machine so I uncommented all the options and it worked.

Code: 
Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier  "VMwareKeyboard[0]"
    Driver      "keyboard"
    #Option "AutoRepeat" "500 30"
    #Option "XkbRules"  "xfree86"
    #Option "XkbModel"  "pc104"
    #Option "XkbLayout" "us"
    #Option "XkbCompat" ""
EndSection

Notice the # before the options. On a reboot vSphere now allowed keyboard access. NOTE: x11 forwarding and x11vnc worked fine even without this.
 
Sorry for the late reply. Anyway, I wouldn't try to install both the vmware-tools and open-vm-tools. Here's what you need to do, IMHO. First, remove *BOTH* vmware-tools and open-vm-tools. Make sure both are completely gone. Next, update your ports tree using portsnap or csup (whatever you normally do and are comfortable with). Finally install open-vm-tools. Make sure it's enabled in /etc/rc.conf and reboot. There may be more you need to do to get the X stuff working, but at this point you should at least have vSphere confirm that it sees the tools running and you should see the kernel modules in kldstat. If X isn't working, I'd recommend moving the config file out of the way and making a new one with X -configure.
 
This is what worked for me:
  • If it’s a server, edit /etc/make.conf and add:
    Code: 
    WITHOUT_X11=yes
  • Install latest ports
  • Install latest Perl
  • Install VMware Tools
It pulls python and ruby. Doesn’t do any good to pre-install these because it still installs the version it wants to, even if you have a newer version installed. You can accept the defaults EXCEPT if it's a server, like mine. In that case clear the check box on the Extra Character Sets. There are a lot of dependencies so it takes quite awhile, but it doesn't depend on compat6, and when it's finished, everything works drop-dead perfect. Don't forget to scroll up and copy the entries needed for your rc.conf. I almost missed those.
# make install clean -C /usr/ports/emulators/open-vm-tools
Edit: New Information: I now install the tools that come with VMware by following this procedure:
https://www.dan.me.uk/blog/2012/01/31/how-to-install-vmware-tools-in-freebsd-9/
 
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