In Ubuntu 14.04 (trusty), I successfully complied and installed VMwareTools-9.6.1-1378637.tar.gz, using the patches at https://github.com/rasa/vmware-tools-patches/tree/master/patches/vmhgfs.
I am able to mount a Shared Folder, but the folder is not usable. Instead, a "Not a directory" error is displayed. For example:
# ls -l /mnt/hgfs
ls: cannot open directory /mnt/hgfs: Not a directory
This issue has been reported previously at Re: Problem building vmware-tools vmhgfs module from workstation 9.0.3 on fedora 19 kernel 3.13.5-103
and https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/open-vm-tools/+bug/1272196/ .
Note that https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/open-vm-tools/+bug/1272196/comments/5 states:
"The vmhgfs (VMWare Host<->Guest File System) module is no longer be supported by VMWare and it does not build on recent kernels."
Is this, in fact, true? Is Shared Folders no longer supported?
If the answer is yes, what are the alternatives (other than NFS, Samba, SSHFS, etc)?