Get it while its hot: VMtools for MacOSX

[gnubeard]

Hello everyone,

 

This site (http://chitchat.at.infoseek.co.jp/vmware/vmtools.html) is an open-source implementation of many of the functions from the official

VMware Tools package. There is no support for MacOSX in there, but..

 

I've hacked up the source tree a bit and placed my results here:

 

ftp://ftp.asu.ru/incoming/gnubeard/macvmtools.tgz

 

This archive includes the source tree, docs, my Makefile for Darwin, and bins for MacOSX. It hasn't been heavily tested yet, I just verified basic functionality. Please post any problems, successes, etc here so that I can debug this as needed.

 

Enjoy.

 

-gnubeard

[LinkFreak]

Wow Very nice thank you!

 

BTW the FTP is locked any username or password?

[gnubeard]

Do you mean the FTP session to ftp.asu.ru, or when using vmftp?

 

Getting to ftp.asu.ru is easy: just use anonymous for the username and any email address for the password (doesn't have to be real).

 

If you mean vmftp - that should Just Work, I would think. In any case, there is no authentication mechanism for vmftp that I know of.

In any event, vmftp is an interface to the Shared Folders feature of VMware Workstation, so you need to be using that -- not VMware Server, or

Player, or whatever. I don't know if GSX/ESX support Shared Folders or not.

 

And, for the record, you should be using VMware Workstation anyhow. MacOSX runs somewhat faster in Workstation than in Server (never tried Player).

[gnubeard]

Well, it seems that vmshrink is busted. I'll have to look into that at some point.

 

But, for the immediate future, I'm going to work on making a more full-featured program for MacOSX. 'vmw' seems to work with 99% functionality

(the 1% failure is with setting the guest OS time to match the host's -- I haven't added Darwin support for that yet).

 

Once I get the MacOSX guest to sync the time properly with the host, I'm going to put together a GUI app to make interacting w/ VMware

from OSX a bit easier. I intend to support a few things:

 

Device dis/connection (ethernet, cdrom, etc).

Copy/Paste interaction with the host

Allow the mouse to roam outside the VMware console freely w/o needing CTL/ALT

A display giving the full stats of the virtual machine (Vmware version, etc)

 

I'd really like some feedback here regarding the Right Way to do this. Dashboard applet, or ordinary Aqua app? I'm really no good at designing

GUIs, so if someone wants to draw a little something to give me ideas, that would be helpful.

 

-gnubeard

[larrry]

Okay I am new, how do you apply the vmwaretool

like where do you put the file.

I been looking for over 3hrs and can't find any reference has how to use it

 

thanks

 

For making it happend

[gnubeard]

Okay I am new, how do you apply the vmwaretool

like where do you put the file.

I been looking for over 3hrs and can't find any reference has how to use it

 

thanks

 

For making it happend

 

You're welcome, and thanks for the diligence .. sorry your 3hrs of time didn't pay off for you. I promise to spend 3 hours working on this some more, for you.

 

But, this isn't quite ready for prime-time yet. This is a command-line oriented tool. You need to use it from the Terminal.

 

So, unzip the thing, and you'll find a MacOSX directory. In there is a program called vmw .. so, open Terminal, and cd your way into the

MacOSX directory, and type:

 

./vmw

 

That will give you a bunch of options on how to call the program. If none of this makes sense to you, you'll need to read up on the MacOSX / UNIX shell...

 

But fear not. I am going to work on a GUI interface when I get a bit more free time. The hold up is partly that I don't have much free time at the moment, but a GUI for this thing shouldn't take long -- and the other part is that I'm still debating whether I want to write a GUI as a script around the existing vmw bin, or if I want to absorb the code into a proper Cocoa app. There are advantages both ways.

 

Thoughts on the matter are welcome.

[nsomnius]

This is exciting news. Guesting OSX in VMWare is of limited usefulness without the shared folders VMTools brings (unless I'm overlooking something that's obvious to anyone more learned than myself). On that note, my three hours have been logged and I'm no closer to running vmw. I plodded my way through cd-ing but am lost as to how a file can be accessed that has not been shared within the VM in the first place. A clue would sure come in handy right about now.

For the record, I'm enjoying Myzars 10.4.6 I got a while ago after spending two solid days attempting Jas 10.4.8 on my QX6700 with 4 gigs of RAM. I figure it this can't wield a VM, nothing can. Looking very much forward to getting things smoothed out with VMTools or facsimile.

 

Now about that clue : )....

 

Thanks for all the hard work!

[nsomnius]

For what it's worth, I succeeded in opening vwm by dropping the files onto a RAM disk while in windows with the guest OS shut down, changed the guest OS settings to use a hardware CD drive and now file interchange is only mildly inconvenient. Still hoping for some help with terminal though : )

[gnubeard]

Shared folders are indeed a nice feature. The vmftp program will access your shared folders as if you were using a terminal-based ftp client.

 

You probably want something more drag-and-drop, though .. I assume you have your MacOSX networked to your host and other VMs?

So why not just enable Windows Sharing on the Mac side, and then use ordinary Windows shared folder features?

 

gnubeard

 

P.S. go to my home page, and get VMacTool. It offers the same functionality as vmw, but with a GUI.