Change the Serial Port Configuration

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. You can add up to 32 serial ports to a virtual machine.

Virtual machines can be in a powered-on state during configuration.

Prerequisites

• Check that you know 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.
• To connect a serial port over a network, add a Firewall rule set. See Adding a Firewall Rule Set for Serial Port Network Connections.
• To use authentication parameters with network serial port connections, see Authentication Parameters for Virtual Serial Port Network Connections.

• Required privileges:
  • Virtual machine.Configuration.Modify device settings on the virtual machine.
  • Virtual machine.Interaction.Device connection on the virtual machine to change the device connection status.

Procedure

1. Right-click a virtual machine in the inventory and select Edit Settings.
2. On the Virtual Hardware tab, expand Serial port, and select a connection type.

   Option	Action
   Use physical serial port	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.
   Use output file	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.
   Use named pipe	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. Type a name for the pipe in the Pipe Name field. Select the Near end and Far end of the pipe from the drop-down menus.
   Use Network	Select Use network to connect through a remote network. Select the network backing. Select Server to have the virtual machine monitor incoming connections from other hosts. Select Client to have the virtual machine initiate a connection to another host. Enter a Port URI. The URI is the remote end of the serial port to which the virtual machine's serial port should connect. 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.
   Printer	Select Printer to connect to a remote printer.

3. (Optional) Select Yield CPU 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.
4. (Optional) Select Connect at power on to connect the serial port when the virtual machine powers on.
5. Click OK.

Example: Establishing Serial Port Network Connections to a Client or Server Without Authentication Parameters

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.