====== Open VM Tools Background and Assumptions ======
The procedure for making the proprietary VMWare Tools and Open VM Tools are very similar. As it turns out, the Open VM Tools package is incomplete, and so we must fill in the gaps based on what we know from VMWare Tools. In particular, two files in the ''/etc'' directory which are critical for the Open VM Tools to work are provided here because they do not get built during the make process.
This procedure details how to build an Open VM Tools extension only. How to make an extension for VMWare Tools is left as an exercise for the reader. The Open VM Tools extension is much smaller than the the VMWare Tools extension because the VMWare Tools comes with most of the dependent libraries built in, whereas Open VM Tools has the same libraries as dependencies.
The resulting extension will be kernel version specific because kernel modules will be built and loaded. It is not known if it is possible to build the programs and modules separately, or if programs and modules compiled against different versions could be separated and still interoperate. This has been tested on 32-bit only and has not been tested on 64-bit systems.
====== Creating an Open VM Tools TCZ Extension ======
This article assumes the user is comfortable at the command line. Using these instructions, the user will:
* create temporary files and directories
* output the final files to a temp directory
* compile applications from source
Required:
* Xorg-7.6 extension configured with the vmware driver in xorg.conf in the target virtual machine
* The open-vm-tools source code ([[http://sourceforge.net/projects/open-vm-tools/files/open-vm-tools/]])
* The following extensions:
- compiletc
- linux-headers-KERNEL
- glibc_apps
- glib2-dev
- gtk2-dev
- gtkmm-dev
- Xorg-7.6-dev
- procps
- libdnet
- fuse
- squashfs-tools-4.x
===== Abbreviated steps =====
- Compile Open VM Tools
- Create Open VM Tools setuid links
- Create Initialization Scripts
- Create TCZ extension
- Install TCZ extension
===== Compile Open VM Tools =====
Download the latest version of the open-vm-tools from Sourceforge. Do not be fooled by the link to the latest version above the version directories.
Unpack the open-vm-tools source code and cd into the new directory:
tar xfz open-vm-tools-X.Y.Z-build_number.tar.gz
cd open-vm-tools-X.Y.Z-build_number
./configure --prefix=/usr/local --without-pam --without-icu --disable-static RPCGEN=$(readlink -f $(which rpcgen)) RPCGENFLAGS="-Y $(dirname $(which cpp))"
Edit ''modules/Makefile'' before running make:
- Update the MODULES_DIR path to ''/usr/local/lib/modules/3.0.21-tinycore/kernel/''. Use your target kernel version if it is different.
- Either: Add ''vmblock'' to the list of modules to be built on the line which begins with ''MODULES ='', Or: Add fuse.tgz to the list of dependencies for the extension.
Run as root, if not already su'ed, for the rest of this procedure.
Run make:
make
mkdir TCZ
sudo sh
TCZROOT=$(pwd)/TCZ
make DESTDIR=$TCZROOT install-strip
===== Create Open VM Tools setuid Links =====
It's a feature of the setuid wrapper that the executables must be in specific place defined in a ''locations'' file in
the ''/etc/vmware-tools'' directory, and that they be referenced through one and only one link (see the source). The extension process
will make everything links, but this isn't a problem because we know the links will be in the ''/tmp/tcloop/open-vm-tools/usr/local'' subdirectories.
''vmware-user-setuid-wrapper'' works by checking that the link in BINDIR or SBINDIR has LIBDIR in it's path.
Make the TinyCore extension specific vmware paths locations file in the ''TCZ/etc/vmware-tools'' directory:
answer BINDIR /tmp/tcloop/open-vm-tools/usr/local/bin
answer INITDIR /etc/init.d
answer INITSCRIPTSDIR /etc/init.d
answer SBINDIR /tmp/tcloop/open-vm-tools/usr/local/sbin
answer LIBDIR /tmp/tcloop/open-vm-tools/usr/local/lib/open-vm-tools
Create a link to the plugins directory in TCZ/etc/vmware-tools
ln -s /tmp/tcloop/open-vm-tools/usr/local/lib/open-vm-tools/plugins plugins
The Open VM Tools also wants to know what distribution and release it's running on:
sed -e 's/^/TinyCore /' /usr/share/doc/tc/release.txt > $TCZROOT/etc/release
Move the files to LIBDIR subdirectories and create links in the BINDIR and SBINDIR directories:
cd $TCZROOT/usr/local/lib/open-vm-tools
mkdir bin sbin lib
cd $TCZROOT/usr/local/lib/open-vm-tools/bin
mv $TCZROOT/usr/local/bin/* .
ln -s vmware-user-suid-wrapper vmware-user
chmod u+s vmware-user-suid-wrapper
cd $TCZROOT/usr/local/bin
for a in ../lib/open-vm-tools/bin/*; do ln -s /tmp/tcloop/open-vm-tools/usr/local/lib/open-vm-tools/bin/$(basename $a); done
cd $TCZROOT/usr/local/lib/open-vm-tools/sbin
mv $TCZROOT/usr/local/sbin/* .
cd $TCZROOT/usr/local/sbin
for a in ../lib/open-vm-tools/sbin/*; do ln -s /tmp/tcloop/open-vm-tools/usr/local/lib/open-vm-tools/sbin/$(basename $a); done
cd $TCZROOT/usr/local/lib/open-vm-tools/lib
mv $TCZROOT/usr/local/lib/lib* .
cd $TCZROOT/usr/local/lib
for a in ../lib/open-vm-tools/lib/lib*; do ln -s /tmp/tcloop/open-vm-tools/usr/local/lib/open-vm-tools/lib/$(basename $a); done
===== Create Initialization Scripts =====
Make the Tinycore extension initialization script in the ''TCZ/usr/local/tce.installed'' directory:
mkdir -p $TCZROOT/usr/local/tce.installed
Make sure that the script name matches the extension name if not using ''open-vm-tools'':
#!/bin/sh
#
/etc/init.d/open-vm-tools start
Make the script executable:
chmod a+x open-vm-tools
Make the TCZ/etc/init.d directory:
mkdir -p $TCZROOT/etc/init.d
Make the open-vm-tools startup script in the TCZ/etc/init.d directory:
#!/bin/sh
# Start, stop, and restart vmtoolsd
unload_module() {
lsmod|grep -q ^$1 && rmmod $1
/sbin/udevadm settle
}
load_module() {
lsmod|grep -q ^$1 || modprobe $1
/sbin/udevadm settle
}
case "$1" in
start)
# Ensure kernel modules can be loaded
depmod -a
# Interface check
NIF1=$(wc -l < /proc/net/dev)
# Load vmhgfs module
load_module vmhgfs
# Mount vmhgfs
vmhgfs_mnt=/mnt/hgfs
[ -d $vmhgfs_mnt ] || mkdir -p $vmhgfs_mnt
sed /hgfs/d -i /etc/fstab
echo ".host:/ $vmhgfs_mnt vmhgfs defaults,user,ttl=5,uid=root,gid=root,fmask=0133,dmask=0022 0 0" >> /etc/fstab
grep -q vmhgfs /etc/mtab || mount $vmhgfs_mnt &>/dev/null
# comes compiled in 4.x kernel
# Load vmmemctl
#load_module vmmemctl
# Load vmci
load_module vmci
# Load vsock
load_module vsock
# Load vmxnet
load_module vmxnet
# Load vmblock
vmblock_dev=/tmp/VMwareDnD
vmblockfusemntpt=/var/run/vmblock-fuse
[ -d $vmblock_dev ] || mkdir -m 1777 -p $vmblock_dev
if tce-status -i | grep -q fuse; then
if grep -q "$vmblockfusemntpt" /etc/mtab; then
true
else
mkdir -m 1777 -p $vmblockfusemntpt
vmware-vmblock-fuse -o subtype=vmware-vmblock,default_permissions,allow_other $vmblockfusemntpt
fi
else
load_module vmblock
mount -t vmblock none /proc/fs/vmblock/mountPoint
fi
# Load vmsync
load_module vmsync
# Start vmtoolsd
if pidof vmtoolsd &>/dev/null; then
echo vmtoolsd already running
else
rm -f /var/run/vmtoolsd.pid
/usr/local/bin/vmtoolsd --background=/var/run/vmtoolsd.pid
fi
# Start vmware-user in user's .xsession
# Use ethtool to optimize vmxnet
if which ethtool &> /dev/null; then
for e in $(grep eth /proc/net/dev|cut -d: -f1); do
ethtool -K $e gso on &> /dev/null
ethtool -K $e tso on &> /dev/null
done
fi
# Start DHCP client for new interfaces
if ! grep -q nodhcp /proc/cmdline; then
NIF2=$(wc -l < /proc/net/dev)
if [ $NIF2 -gt $NIF1 ]; then
/etc/init.d/dhcp.sh
fi
fi
;;
stop)
if pidof vmtoolsd &>/dev/null; then
killall vmtoolsd
echo stopped vmtoolsd
else
echo vmtoolsd is not running
fi
;;
restart)
$0 stop
$0 start
;;
*)
echo "Usage: $0 (start|stop|restart)"
exit 1
;;
esac
Make the script executable:
chmod a+x open-vm-tools
Clean up files we don't need:
rm -rf $TCZROOT/usr/local/etc
rm -rf $TCZROOT/usr/local/share
rm -rf $TCZROOT/usr/local/include
rm -rf $TCZROOT/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig
rm -rf $TCZROOT/sbin
===== Create TCZ Extension =====
At this point the directory should be fully populated with all the files needed for the extension. Use mksquashfs to create the actual extension:
cd $TCZROOT/..
mksquashfs TCZ ~/open-vm-tools.tcz
The new extension has dependencies, so a DEP file needs to be created:
cat > ~/open-vm-tools.tcz.dep <
===== Install TCZ Extension =====
These extensions and their dependencies should be copied to the system that will be using the open-vm-tools extension before it's loaded.
Then add ''blacklist=pcnet32'' to the APPEND line of the boot configuration file.
There is a conflict between the vmxnet and pcnet32 modules, so networking will not work unless the extension is loaded.
Copy the open-vm-tools.tcz and open-vm-tools.tcz.dep files to the tce/optional directory of the virtual machine, and update onboot.lst by adding open-vm-tools.tcz.
Add the following line to your .xsession file after mouse initialization:
[ $(which vmware-checkvm) ] && [ vmware-checkvm ] && vmware-user &
Reboot and enjoy.