Contributed by merdely on from the why-aren't-you-using-Xen-instead dept.
For OpenBSD 4.4, David Gwynne (dlg@) wrote vmt(4) to be "a kernel level implementation of VMware Tools" for OpenBSD. Initially it provided an interface "to the host machine's clock as a timedelta sensor".
In the last couple of weeks, dlg commited changes from jonathan matthew that extended vmt(4)'s functionality. Yesterday, David Coppa (dcoppa@) imported sysutils/vmwh, a userland helper for X for VMware written by Joshua Stein (jcs@).
dlg's recent commit to vmt(4) included the following
commit
message:
CVSROOT: /cvs Module name: src Changes by: dlg@ 2010/10/25 18:57:21 Modified files: sys/dev : vmt.c Log message: big update to vmware tools functionality from jonathan matthew. vmt(4) will now: - initiate shutdown by signalling init with SIGUSR2 when requested by the host. - initiate a reboot by signalling init with SIGINT when requested by the host. - report the guests hostname to the host - report the guests first non-loopback IP address to the host - report the guests uptime to the host - update the guests timedelta sensor using the 64bit rpc vmt(4) now does the majority of what people actually need. this has been tested on vmware server 2.0.2 with linux as the host, vmware esx 4.0, and vmware esx 4.1 testing by jonathan matthew and myself. previous versions of the changes were also tested by johan allard and srebrenko sehic. code reviewed by and ok matthew@ thanks moch and johan :)
jcs's vmwh was recently
imported into the ports tree as sysutil/vmwh. dcoppa's
commit
message includes the README from jcs's page:
CVSROOT: /cvs Module name: ports Changes by: dcoppa@ 2010/11/07 11:06:00 Log message: Import vmwh, a handy vmware userland helper for X. vmwh is a vmware helper for X11, developed on OpenBSD to run in userland alongside the vmt(4) vmware kernel driver and the vmmouse Xorg driver. It detects when the mouse cursor switches back to the host ("ungrabs") and sends the guest's X11 clipboard data (read from xclip) to the host through the vmware backdoor, which gets put onto the host's clipboard. It then detects when the mouse cursor switches back to the guest ("grabs") and replaces the X11 clipboard contents (via xclip) with the host's, which is read through the vmware backdoor. OK jasper@ Status: Vendor Tag: dcoppa Release Tags: dcoppa_20101107 N ports/sysutils/vmwh/distinfo N ports/sysutils/vmwh/Makefile N ports/sysutils/vmwh/pkg/PLIST N ports/sysutils/vmwh/pkg/DESCR N ports/sysutils/vmwh/pkg/MESSAGE N ports/sysutils/vmwh/patches/patch-Makefile No conflicts created by this import
I had a chance to play with vmt(4) and sysutils/vmwh today on VMware Fushion
on OS X. As vmwh's MESSAGE says, add
"XTerm*selectToClipboard:true
" to your ~/.Xdefaults.
Also add "vmwh &
" to your ~/.xinitrc
(or ~/.xsession). I no longer had to press Command+Ctrl to get out of my
VMware window. Just moving the mouse beyond the border of the VM does the
right thing. And, the clipboard sharing is great too.
I haven't yet tested the new changes to vmt(4) with ESX to see the reporting of the IP address, reporting of the uptime, and the shutdown/reboot changes, but I will soon.
Thanks to dlg@, jcs@, and dcoppa@ for their efforts. To those of us using VMware, this makes life great!
(Comments are closed)
By Magic carpet (bodie) bodzart@openbsd.cz on http://www.openbsd.org
Comments
By Alan Post (alanpost) on http://sunflowerriver.org/
I'm really happy to see this improvement. I run OpenBSD in VMWare, which I purchased after having no luck at all running OpenBSD stably inside of Qemu.
I had considered OpenBSD a bit hostile in general to adding support in the kernel for virtualization, so I was caught by surprise at this.
By Jim Razmus II (jim) jtr2-undeadly@bonetruck.org on http://www.bonetruck.org/
Comments
By Mike Erdely (merdely) on
> within the VI Client. But OS incorrectly reads FreeBSD.
Jim: this is probably more because of what OS you told VMware you were installing than anything the VM is reporting to the host.
By Anonymous Coward (anon) on
sys/dev/vmt.c has this to say:
* host doesn't like it if we send an OS name it doesn't recognise,
* so use the closest match, which happens to be FreeBSD.
By Dean Hamstead (djzort) dean@bong.com.au on http://fragfest.com.au
Comments
By jirib (jirib) on
1st we wait for you to write virtualized vmware disk driver ;)
Comments
By Dean Hamstead (djzort) on http://fragfest.com.au
>
> 1st we wait for you to write virtualized vmware disk driver ;)
id rather not spend my time putting money in EMC's shareholders pockets.
Comments
By Joachim Schipper (Joachim) on http://www.joachimschipper.nl/About me
> >
> > 1st we wait for you to write virtualized vmware disk driver ;)
>
> id rather not spend my time putting money in EMC's shareholders pockets.
As opposed to asking others to put money in EMC's shareholders' pockets for you?
By estet (estet) ligurio@yandex.ru on www.parallels.com
Comments
By brynet (Brynet) on
The moment you write it, make it pretty, and send a patch.