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Add a Virtual Serial Port to a Virtual Machine on page 85
You can add up to four serial (COM) ports to a virtual machine. Virtual serial ports can output to physical
serial ports, files, or named pipes.
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Change the Input Speed of a Serial Connection on page 86
You can increase the speed of a serial connection over a pipe to a virtual machine.
Add a Virtual Parallel Port to a Virtual Machine
You can attach up to three bidirectional parallel (LPT) ports to a virtual machine. Virtual parallel ports can
output to parallel ports or to files on the host system.
Parallel ports are used for a variety of devices, including printers, scanners, dongles, and disk drives. Although
these devices can connect to the host system, only printers can reliably connect to virtual machines by using
parallel ports.
Player provides only partial emulation of PS/2 hardware. Interrupts that a device connected to a physical port
requests are not passed to the virtual machine. The guest operating system cannot use direct memory access
(DMA) to move data to or from the port. For this reason, not all devices that attach to a parallel port work
correctly. Do not use virtual parallel ports to connect parallel port storage devices or other types of parallel
port devices to a virtual machine.
Prerequisites
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If you are using a Linux host system that has a 2.6.x kernel, verify that the parallel port PC-style hardware
option (CONFIG_PARPORT_PC) is built and loaded as a kernel module. See “Configure a Virtual Parallel
Port on a Linux 2.6.x Kernel Host,” on page 84.
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If you are using a Linux host system that does not grant virtual machines access to the lp and parport
devices by default, add the VMware user to the group that has permission to access those devices. See
“Configure Permissions for a Parallel Port Device on a Linux Host,” on page 84.
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Power off the virtual machine.
Procedure
1 Select the virtual machine and select Virtual Machine > Virtual Machine Settings.
2 On the Hardware tab, click Add.
3 In the New Hardware wizard, select Parallel Port.
4 Select where the virtual parallel port sends output.
Option Description
Use a physical parallel port
Select a parallel port on the host system.
Use output file
Send output from the virtual parallel port to a file on the host system. Either
locate an existing output file or browse to a directory and type a filename to
create a new output file.
5 To connect the virtual parallel port to the virtual machine when the virtual machine powers on, select
Connect at power on.
6 Click Finish to add the virtual parallel port to the virtual machine.
When a parallel port is configured for a virtual machine, most guest operating systems detect the port at
installation time and install the required drivers. Some operating systems, including Linux, Windows NT, and
Windows 2000, detect the ports at boot time.
Chapter 6 Configuring and Managing Devices
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