Mouse does not function on a Solaris 11 virtual machine

Products

• VMware Desktop Hypervisor
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Mouse does not function on a Solaris 11 virtual machine
• After setting up a virtual machine with the Solaris 11 guest operating system, the mouse does not work

Environment

VMware Workstation 9.x (Linux)
VMware Fusion 6.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1
VMware Fusion 7.x
VMware Workstation 9.x (Windows)
VMware Fusion 5.x

Cause

This issue occurs because Solaris 11 does not load the correct driver by default.

Resolution

For Solaris 11.4, ensure you are on Solaris 11.4.9 .5.0 (Solaris 11.4 SRU 9).

To resolve this issue, you must specify the driver in the configuration file.

 

To specify the driver in the configuration file:

1. Verify that VMware Tools are installed in the Solaris 11 virtual machine. For more information, see Installing VMware Tools in a Solaris virtual machine.
    
2. Enter single-user mode in the guest operating system by running the command:
   
   init S
    
3. Generate a new xorg.conf file by running the command:
   
   Xorg -configure
    
4. Copy the newly generated file /root/xorg.conf.new to /etc/X11/xorg.conf:
   
   cp /root/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf
    
5. Open the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf for editing and modify the Mouse0 InputDevice section. For example:
   
   Section "InputDevice"
   Identifier "Mouse0"
   Driver "vmmouse"
   EndSection
    
6. Open the file /etc/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/11-x11-vmmouse.fdi for editing.
    
7. Find the line that says:
   
   <append key="info.callouts.add" type="strlist">hal-probe-vmmouse</append>
    
8. Add this line underneath it:
   
   <merge key="input.x11_driver" type="string">vmmouse</merge>
    
9. Reboot the virtual machine.

Additional Information

Installing VMware Tools in a Solaris virtual machine