6.5.1

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.
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.
a Type a name for the pipe in the Pipe Name field.
b Select the Near end and Far end of the pipe from the drop-down menus.
Connect over the network Select Use network to connect through a remote network.
a Select the network backing.
n
Select Server to have the virtual machine monitor incoming connections
from other hosts.
n
Select Client to have the virtual machine initiate a connection to another
host.
b Enter a Port URI.
The URI is the remote end of the serial port to which the virtual machine's
serial port should connect.
c 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.
5 (Optional) Select Yield on CPU 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.
6 Select Connect at power on to connect the serial port when the virtual machine powers on.
7 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
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration
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