Vmware Fusion Serial Port Socket

Hi Guys,I hope someone can help me with this, as I guess it is a fairly common operation.I want to (using screen or putty or securecrt) connect to the serial console of XRv running in VMware Workstation 12 running on Ubuntu 16.04.I've done it in Virtualbox on Windows with //./pipe/test, but not sure how to create the named pipe in VMware workstation on Linux.I tried using the /dev/ttyS0, but there are issues with that. I need to edit the.vmxf file?My options are:Use socket (named pipe): here I enter /dev/ttyS0From: options are: (Server Client) I put ServerTo: options are: (A Virtual Machine An Application) I put An Application.I get this message when I start XRv:A virtual serial port (serial0) is trying to connect to pipe '/dev/ttyS0', which already exists.If I choose to overwrite, I get this:Virtual device serial0: Cannot unlink '/dev/ttyS0'.The device will be disconnected.Help and instructions would be greatly appreciated.Thanks,Greg. Hi greg,you probably want to edit the config file for the virtual machine and add a serial with a reverse telnet so that you can tcp connect to the virtual serial port.

Having the virtual machine create a 'fake' serial port requires some drivers and tricks to create a new hardware reference for that serial so that you can connect putty to the 'com' port (or /dev/ttySx). Having it with a reverse telnet allows you to connect to the console from pretty much anywhere and is I think a little easier to manage/handle from that standpoint.One other thing I wanted to point out is that if you start the virtual machine, the vmachine console stays black or only prints a single line or so (or very minimal). The XR booting process can be followed via that serial.cheersxander.

Hi xander,Have you ever gone through the process of getting the vm to create the /dev/ttySx port, or have a link or two I can look at. I'd like to learn this method also.It is surprising to me that making a named serial pipe work on a windows system seems easier than doing it with linux. Maybe it is not really harder with linux, but I just don't know the steps and windows is automating some things that in linux require specific configuration.I might take this discussion up on a vmware or linux/ubuntu forum since I am interested in being able to created named serial pipes to VMs in linux.Regards,Greg. Hi xander,Thanks for those steps on getting an XRv vm to create a serial pipe to read from on the host.

I was able to get this working on a system where the host is Windows.Do you know where find the steps to do the same thing with a Linux host?I've found some links and have been trying some things, but each time there are errors/technical issues. I think this might be best addressed in a Linux or VMware forum.Thanks again for your input. I'm really looking forward to working with XRv!Cheers,Greg. That link was the key. Also, Thanks to Gerhard Rieger(socat) and Finnbarr P.

MurphySo yes:1. Create a Named Serial Pipe in vmware as:/tmp/NSP (using Server and Application checks also)2. Launch VM (XRv)3. Run socat with the UXIX-CONNECT as suchroot@fxihs:/tmp# socat -d -d -d UNIX-CONNECT:/tmp/NSP PTY4. Look at the debug to find the correct /dev in my case it was:2017/02/27 06:33:44 socat6701 N PTY is /dev/pts/65. Now I can screen to the device!6.

I can even now echo to the deviceroot@fxihs:/dev# echo sh ver /dev/pts/6root@fxihs:/dev#.RP/0/0/CPU0:ios#sh verMon Feb 27 06:36:33.602 UTCCisco IOS XR Software, Version 4.3.2DefaultCopyright (c) 2013 by Cisco Systems, IncThis is a successful creation of named serial pipe in VMware workstation on Linux to an XRv vm, allowing direct access to the console! Stoked!(Some future day I could look into exactly what UNIX-CONNECT and socat are doing, for now I'm satisfied using the tools as is!)Cheers!

Vmware Fusion Serial Port Socket Set

IntroductionOpenStack Compute supports the VMware vSphere product family and enables accessto advanced features such as vMotion, High Availability, and Dynamic ResourceScheduling (DRS).This section describes how to configure VMware-based virtual machine images forlaunch. The VMware driver supports vCenter version 5.5.0 and later.The VMware vCenter driver enables the nova-compute service to communicatewith a VMware vCenter server that manages one or more ESX host clusters. Thedriver aggregates the ESX hosts in each cluster to present one large hypervisorentity for each cluster to the Compute scheduler. Because individual ESX hostsare not exposed to the scheduler, Compute schedules to the granularity ofclusters and vCenter uses DRS to select the actual ESX host within the cluster.When a virtual machine makes its way into a vCenter cluster, it can use allvSphere features.The following sections describe how to configure the VMware vCenter driver.

As the figure shows, the OpenStack Compute Scheduler sees three hypervisorsthat each correspond to a cluster in vCenter. Nova-compute contains theVMware driver. You can run with multiple nova-compute services. It isrecommended to run with one nova-compute service per ESX cluster thusensuring that while Compute schedules at the granularity of thenova-compute service it is also in effect able to schedule at the clusterlevel.

In turn the VMware driver inside nova-compute interacts with thevCenter APIs to select an appropriate ESX host within the cluster. Internally,vCenter uses DRS for placement.The VMware vCenter driver also interacts with the Image service to copy VMDKimages from the Image service back-end store. The dotted line in the figurerepresents VMDK images being copied from the OpenStack Image service to thevSphere data store. VMDK images are cached in the data store so the copyoperation is only required the first time that the VMDK image is used.After OpenStack boots a VM into a vSphere cluster, the VM becomes visible invCenter and can access vSphere advanced features.

At the same time, the VM isvisible in the OpenStack dashboard and you can manage it as you would any otherOpenStack VM. You can perform advanced vSphere operations in vCenter while youconfigure OpenStack resources such as VMs through the OpenStack dashboard.The figure does not show how networking fits into the architecture. Bothnova-network and the OpenStack Networking Service are supported.

Fordetails, see. Prerequisites and limitationsUse the following list to prepare a vSphere environment that runs with theVMware vCenter driver: Copying VMDK files In vSphere 5.1, copying large image files (for example, 12 GB and greater)from the Image service can take a long time. To improve performance, VMwarerecommends that you upgrade to VMware vCenter Server 5.1 Update 1 or later.For more information, see the. DRS For any cluster that contains multiple ESX hosts, enable DRS and enable fullyautomated placement. Shared storage Only shared storage is supported and data stores must be shared among allhosts in a cluster. It is recommended to remove data stores not intended forOpenStack from clusters being configured for OpenStack.

Clusters and data stores Do not use OpenStack clusters and data stores for other purposes. If you do,OpenStack displays incorrect usage information. Networking The networking configuration depends on the desired networking model. Security groupsIf you use the VMware driver with OpenStack Networking and the NSX plug-in,security groups are supported. If you use nova-network, security groupsare not supported.

NoteIn addition to the default VNC port numbers (5900 to 6000) specified inthe above document, the following ports are also used: 6101, 6102, and6105.You must modify the ESXi firewall configuration to allow the VNC ports.Additionally, for the firewall modifications to persist after a reboot, youmust create a custom vSphere Installation Bundle (VIB) which is theninstalled onto the running ESXi host or added to a custom image profile usedto install ESXi hosts. For details about how to create a VIB for persistingthe firewall configuration modifications, see. VMware vCenter service accountOpenStack integration requires a vCenter service account with the followingminimum permissions.

Apply the permissions to the Datacenter root object,and select the Propagate to Child Objects option. Note. Clusters: The vCenter driver can support only a single cluster. Clustersand data stores used by the vCenter driver should not contain any VMsother than those created by the driver. Data stores: The datastoreregex setting specifies the data stores touse with Compute.

For example, datastoreregex='nas.' selects allthe data stores that have a name starting with “nas”.

Vmware Fusion Serial Port Socket Adapter

If this line isomitted, Compute uses the first data store returned by the vSphere API. Itis recommended not to use this field and instead remove data stores thatare not intended for OpenStack. Reserved host memory: The reservedhostmemorymb option value is 512MB by default. However, VMware recommends that you set this option to 0 MBbecause the vCenter driver reports the effective memory available to thevirtual machines. The vCenter driver generates instance name by instance ID. Instance nametemplate is ignored. The minimum supported vCenter version is 5.5.0.

Starting in the OpenStackOcata release any version lower than 5.5.0 will be logged as a warning. Inthe OpenStack Pike release this will be enforced.A nova-compute service can control one or more clusters containing multipleESXi hosts, making nova-compute a critical service from a high availabilityperspective. Because the host that runs nova-compute can fail while thevCenter and ESX still run, you must protect the nova-compute serviceagainst host failures. Images with VMware vSphereThe vCenter driver supports images in the VMDK format.

Disks in this format canbe obtained from VMware Fusion or from an ESX environment. It is also possibleto convert other formats, such as qcow2, to the VMDK format using theqemu-img utility.

After a VMDK disk is available, load it into the Imageservice. Then, you can use it with the VMware vCenter driver. The followingsections provide additional details on the supported disks and the commandsused for conversion and upload. Supported image typesUpload images to the OpenStack Image service in VMDK format. The followingVMDK disk types are supported:. VMFS Flat Disks (includes thin, thick, zeroedthick, andeagerzeroedthick). Note that once a VMFS thin disk is exported from VMFS to anon-VMFS location, like the OpenStack Image service, it becomes apreallocated flat disk.

This impacts the transfer time from the Image serviceto the data store when the full preallocated flat disk, rather than the thindisk, must be transferred. Monolithic Sparse disks. Sparse disks get imported from the Image serviceinto ESXi as thin provisioned disks. Monolithic Sparse disks can be obtainedfrom VMware Fusion or can be created by converting from other virtual diskformats using the qemu-img utility.

Stream-optimized disks. Stream-optimized disks are compressed sparsedisks. They can be obtained from VMware vCenter/ESXi when exporting vm toovf/ova template.The following table shows the vmwaredisktype property that applies to eachof the supported VMDK disk types: OpenStack Image service disk type settings vmwaredisktype propertyVMDK disk typesparseMonolithic SparsethinVMFS flat, thin provisionedpreallocated (default)VMFS flat, thick/zeroedthick/eagerzeroedthickstreamOptimizedCompressed SparseThe vmwaredisktype property is set when an image is loaded into the Imageservice. For example, the following command creates a Monolithic Sparse imageby setting vmwaredisktype to sparse. NoteIf a glance image has a vmwareostype property which does not correspondto a valid VMware guestId, VM creation will fail, and a warning will belogged. $ openstack image create -container-format bare -disk-format vmdk -property vmwaredisktype = 'sparse' -property vmwareadaptertype = 'ide' trusty-cloud. $ openstack image create -disk-format vmdk -container-format bare -property vmwareadaptertype = 'lsiLogic' -property vmwaredisktype = 'preallocated' -property vmwareostype = 'ubuntu64Guest' ubuntu-thick-scsi.

Optimize imagesMonolithic Sparse disks are considerably faster to download but have theoverhead of an additional conversion step. When imported into ESX, sparse disksget converted to VMFS flat thin provisioned disks.

The download and conversionsteps only affect the first launched instance that uses the sparse disk image.The converted disk image is cached, so subsequent instances that use this diskimage can simply use the cached version.To avoid the conversion step (at the cost of longer download times) considerconverting sparse disks to thin provisioned or preallocated disks beforeloading them into the Image service.Use one of the following tools to pre-convert sparse disks. VSphere CLI toolsSometimes called the remote CLI or rCLI.Assuming that the sparse disk is made available on a data store accessible byan ESX host, the following command converts it to preallocated format. Vmkfstools -server=ipofsomeESXhost -i /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/sparse.vmdk /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/converted.vmdkNote that the vifs tool from the same CLI package can be used to upload thedisk to be converted.

The vifs tool can also be used to download theconverted disk if necessary. Vmkfstools directly on the ESX hostIf the SSH service is enabled on an ESX host, the sparse disk can be uploadedto the ESX data store through scp and the vmkfstools local to the ESX hostcan use used to perform the conversion. After you log in to the host throughssh, run this command. Image handlingThe ESX hypervisor requires a copy of the VMDK file in order to boot up avirtual machine. As a result, the vCenter OpenStack Compute driver mustdownload the VMDK via HTTP from the Image service to a data store that isvisible to the hypervisor.

To optimize this process, the first time a VMDK fileis used, it gets cached in the data store. A cached image is stored in afolder named after the image ID. Subsequent virtual machines that need theVMDK use the cached version and don’t have to copy the file again from theImage service.Even with a cached VMDK, there is still a copy operation from the cachelocation to the hypervisor file directory in the shared data store.

To avoidthis copy, boot the image in linkedclone mode. To learn how to enable thismode, see.

Vmware Fusion Serial Port Socket Set

NoteYou can also use the imglinkedclone property (or legacy propertyvmwarelinkedclone) in the Image service to override the linkedclonemode on a per-image basis.If spawning a virtual machine image from ISO with a VMDK disk, the image iscreated and attached to the virtual machine as a blank disk. In that caseimglinkedclone property for the image is just ignored.If multiple compute nodes are running on the same host, or have a shared filesystem, you can enable them to use the same cache folder on the back-end datastore.

To configure this action, set the cacheprefix option in thenova.conf file. Its value stands for the name prefix of the folder wherecached images are stored. NoteThis can take effect only if compute nodes are running on the same host, orhave a shared file system.You can automatically purge unused images after a specified period of time. Toconfigure this action, set these options in the DEFAULT section in thenova.conf file: removeunusedbaseimages Set this option to True to specify that unused images should be removedafter the duration specified in theremoveunusedoriginalminimumageseconds option. The default isTrue. Removeunusedoriginalminimumageseconds Specifies the duration in seconds after which an unused image is purged fromthe cache. The default is 86400 (24 hours).

Vmware Fusion Serial Port Socket

Networking with VMware vSphereThe VMware driver supports networking with the nova-network service or theNetworking Service. Depending on your installation, complete theseconfiguration steps before you provision VMs:.The nova-network service with the FlatManager or FlatDHCPManager.Create a port group with the same name as the flatnetworkbridge valuein the nova.conf file. The default value is br100. If you specifyanother value, the new value must be a valid Linux bridge identifier thatadheres to Linux bridge naming conventions.All VM NICs are attached to this port group.Ensure that the flat interface of the node that runs the nova-networkservice has a path to this network. NoteWhen configuring the port binding for this port group in vCenter, specifyephemeral for the port binding type.

For more information, seein the VMware Knowledge Base.The nova-network service with the VlanManager.Set the vlaninterface configuration option to match the ESX hostinterface that handles VLAN-tagged VM traffic.OpenStack Compute automatically creates the corresponding port groups.If you are using the OpenStack Networking Service:Before provisioning VMs, create a port group with the same name as thevmware.integrationbridge value in nova.conf (default isbr-int). All VM NICs are attached to this port group for management bythe OpenStack Networking plug-in. Configuration referenceTo customize the VMware driver, use the configuration option settings below. Description of VMware configuration options Configuration option = Default valueDescriptionvmwareapiretrycount = 10(Integer) Number of times VMware vCenter server API must be retried on connection failures, e.g. Socket error, etc.cafile = None(String) Specifies the CA bundle file to be used in verifying the vCenter server certificate.cacheprefix = None(String) This option adds a prefix to the folder where cached images are storedThis is not the full path - just a folder prefix. This should only be used when a datastore cache is shared between compute nodes. NoteThis should only be used when the compute nodes are running on same host or they have a shared file system.Possible values:.

Any string representing the cache prefix to the folderclustername = None(String) Name of a VMware Cluster ComputeResource.consoledelayseconds = None(Integer) Set this value if affected by an increased network latency causing repeated characters when typing in a remote console.datastoreregex = None(String) Regular expression pattern to match the name of datastore.The datastoreregex setting specifies the datastores to use with Compute. For example, datastoreregex=”nas.” selects all the data stores that have a name starting with “nas”.

NoteIf no regex is given, it just picks the datastore with the most freespace.Possible values:. Any matching regular expression to a datastore must be givenhostip = None(String) Hostname or IP address for connection to VMware vCenter host.hostpassword = None(String) Password for connection to VMware vCenter host.hostport = 443(Port number) Port for connection to VMware vCenter host.hostusername = None(String) Username for connection to VMware vCenter host.insecure = False(Boolean) If true, the vCenter server certificate is not verified. If false, then the default CA truststore is used for verification.Related options:. cafile: This option is ignored if “cafile” is set.integrationbridge = None(String) This option should be configured only when using the NSX-MH Neutron plugin. This is the name of the integration bridge on the ESXi server or host. This should not be set for any other Neutron plugin. Hence the default value is not set.Possible values:.

Any valid string representing the name of the integration bridgemaximumobjects = 100(Integer) This option specifies the limit on the maximum number of objects to return in a single result.A positive value will cause the operation to suspend the retrieval when the count of objects reaches the specified limit. The server may still limit the count to something less than the configured value.