You can install vmware tools under ESX – but I like to edit part of it.

NOTE: if you’re running FreeBSD 9, you need to follow the guide here instead.

To install, connect with your VM Infrastucture Client, edit the CD Drive, select ‘Datastore ISO file’, and Browse.  Open up the ‘vmimages’ folder and select ‘freebsd.iso’.  Make sure to check the ‘Connected’ checkbox before clicking OK.

In freebsd, as root, do the following:

mount /cdrom
cd /tmp
gunzip -c /cdrom/vmware<tab> | tar xvf –
umount /cdrom
cd vmware<tab>
./vmware-install<tab>

This will start the vmware installer… follow the instructions and select all the defaults.  Once it is complete, you can remove the folder in /tmp/

NOTE: vmtools requires perl to be installed and also “compat6x” port/package if you are using FreeBSD 7 – do this beforehand!

now… edit /usr/local/etc/rc.d/vmware-tools.sh and search for “–background”.  This should be around line 626.  At the end of that line, add:

–halt-command “/sbin/shutdown -p now”

then restart the vmware tools with:

/usr/local/etc/rc.d/vmware-tools.sh restart

This will ensure that, when you use ‘shutdown guest’, the freebsd virtual machine will power off.  Without this update, it will shutdown but not power off.