A virtual machine can use up to four virtual serial ports. You can connect the virtual serial port to a physical serial port or to a file on the host computer. You can also use a host-side named pipe to set up a direct connection between two virtual machines or a connection between a virtual machine and an application on the host computer. In addition, you can use a port or vSPC URI to connect a serial port over the network.
Virtual machines can be in a powered-on state during configuration.
Prerequisites
Check that you known the correct media types for the port to access, vSPC connections, and any conditions that might apply. See Using Serial Ports with vSphere Virtual Machines.
Required privileges:
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on the virtual machine.
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on the virtual machine to change the device connection status.
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Procedure
1 | Select a virtual machine.
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In the virtual machines and templates inventory tree, select a group of virtual machines and select a virtual machine from the list on the right.
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Search for a virtual machine and select it from the search results list.
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2 | In the VM Hardware panel, click Edit Settings. |
3 | Click Virtual Hardware. |
4 | Click the triangle next to the serial port to expand the serial port options. |
5 | (Optional) Change the Device status settings.
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Connected
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Connects or disconnects the device while the virtual machine is running.
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Connect at power on
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Connects the device whenever you power on the virtual machine. You can change this setting when the virtual machine is either powered on or powered off.
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6 | Select a connection type.
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Use physical serial port
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Select this option to have the virtual machine use a physical serial port on the host computer. Select the serial port from the drop-down menu.
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Use output file
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Select this option to send output from the virtual serial port to a file on the host computer. Browse to select an output file to connect the serial port to.
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Use named pipe
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Select this option to set a direct connection between two virtual machines or a connection between a virtual machine and an application on the host computer.
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Type a name for the pipe in the Pipe Name field.
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Select the Near end and Far end of the pipe from the drop-down menus.
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Connect over the network
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Select Use network to connect through a remote network.
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Select the network backing.
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Select Server to have the virtual machine monitor incoming connections from other hosts.
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Select Client to have the virtual machine initiate a connection to another host.
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Enter a Port URI.
The URI is the remote end of the serial port to which the virtual machine's serial port should connect.
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If vSPC is used as an intermediate step to access all virtual machines through a single IP address, select Use Virtual Serial Port Concentrator and enter the vSPC URI location.
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7 | (Optional) Select Yield on poll.
Select this option only for guest operating systems that use serial ports in polled mode. This option prevents the guest from consuming excessive CPUs.
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8 | Click OK. |
Example: Establishing Serial Port Network Connections to a Client or Server
If you do not use vSPC and you configure your virtual machine with a serial port connected as a server with a telnet://:12345 URI, you can connect to your virtual machine's serial port from your Linux or Windows operating system.
telnet yourESXiServerIPAddress 12345
Similarly, if you run the Telnet Server on your Linux system on port 23 (telnet://yourLinuxBox:23), you configure the virtual machine as a client URI.
telnet://yourLinuxBox:23
The virtual machine initiates the connection to your Linux system on port 23.