6.7

Add a Serial Port to a Virtual Machine in the vSphere Web Client
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. A virtual machine can use up to 32 serial
ports.
Important With virtual hardware version 11 and later, if you configure a virtual machine without serial
ports, they are entirely removed from the virtual chipset and they are not visible to the virtual machine OS.
Prerequisites
n
Verify that the virtual machine is powered off.
n
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.
n
To connect a serial port over a network, add a Firewall rule set. See Adding a Firewall Rule Set for
Serial Port Network Connections.
n
To use authentication parameter with network serial port connections, see Authentication Parameters
for Virtual Serial Port Network Connections.
n
Required privilege: Virtual Machine .Configuration.Add or Remove Device
Procedure
1 Right-click a virtual machine in the inventory and select Edit Settings.
2 On the Virtual Hardware tab, select Serial Port from the New device drop-down menu, and click
Add.
The serial port appears at the bottom of the virtual device list.
3 Expand New Serial Port.
4 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.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration
VMware, Inc. 131