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Enabling serial port in ESXi for a VM


Balrog

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A little help for everyone who struggles a little bit with enabling the serial console in ESXi. This manual works 1:1:

https://www.juniper.net/documentation/en_US/vmx15.1f4/topics/task/configuration/vmx-vm-connecting-vmware.html

 

in short:

 

# at ESXi:
open Firewall for serial Console

 

# at VM:
add Serial Port 1
- Use Network
- Connect at Power
- Direction: Server
- Port URI: telnet://:8601

 

In PuTTY the connection will be made as:

Type: Telnet

Hostname: IP-of-your-ESXi-Host

Port: The-port-you-entered-in-the-config-of-the-VM (e.g. 8601)

 

With this you have at every time contact to the Xpenology-VM-Console even a driver wont be load with a upgrade (like in Loader 1.02a). :-)

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As I wrote: You are able with this to access a direct console at every time. Like an insurance if things go bad. Even without loaded nic-drivers in the VM or disabled SSH.
In the past this was the access via iLO for me as DSM was installed bare-metal on a HP Microserver Gen8.

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  • 2 months later...
As I wrote: You are able with this to access a direct console at every time. Like an insurance if things go bad. Even without loaded nic-drivers in the VM or disabled SSH.
In the past this was the access via iLO for me as DSM was installed bare-metal on a HP Microserver Gen8.
Is this still possible on esxi 6.5 free edition for you?
For me a license issue is shown in the vmware.log of the virtual machine :(

Is there maybe another way?

Gesendet von meinem ONE A2003 mit Tapatalk

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  • 1 year later...
bumping this old thread, what user do I use if it is the first setup of the diskstation?
 
Regards
If you just booted from the usb-stick and not have installed DSM via the assistant than you can't login to the system. :-)

If DSM is installed you can login as "root" if you wish or with "admin" and change to root afterwards (the same way you use if you login via ssh).
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  • 4 weeks later...
On ‎11‎/‎16‎/‎2017 at 1:16 PM, Balrog said:

It is possible that the serial port function is only available with a licensed esxi-host but I am not sure about this.

Sent from my SM-T810 using Tapatalk
 

 

Reviving an old thread - the free ESXi license does not allow redirection of a virtual serial port to a network daemon.   Virtual serial ports are in fact supported, however.

 

If you happen to have a motherboard with a BMC (baseboard management controller) that supports SOL (serial over LAN), it is trivial to set up the ESXi virtual serial port to be serviced by the system physical serial port, which is then redirected via SOL to a BMC-based terminal application.

 

The other option is to run ESXi in demo mode and renew the demo license every 60 days.

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  • 2 months later...
On 8/24/2017 at 2:04 PM, Balrog said:

A little help for everyone who struggles a little bit with enabling the serial console in ESXi. This manual works 1:1:

https://www.juniper.net/documentation/en_US/vmx15.1f4/topics/task/configuration/vmx-vm-connecting-vmware.html

 

in short:

 

# at ESXi:
open Firewall for serial Console

 

# at VM:
add Serial Port 1
- Use Network
- Connect at Power
- Direction: Server
- Port URI: telnet://:8601

 

In PuTTY the connection will be made as:

Type: Telnet

Hostname: IP-of-your-ESXi-Host

Port: The-port-you-entered-in-the-config-of-the-VM (e.g. 8601)

 

With this you have at every time contact to the Xpenology-VM-Console even a driver wont be load with a upgrade (like in Loader 1.02a). :-)

U sir are amazing maluch appreciated

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  • 1 year later...

I am having this strange issue where Jun Loader 1.04(b) with DS918+ is not working with ESXi 6.7SU2. 
In order to troubleshoot, i turned on the serial interface as per instructions above and got the serial connection successfull but it does not show anything other than the initial screen of GNU Grub version 2.02

====================================================================      

                             GNU GRUB  version 2.02

 +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 | DS918+ 6.2.1/6.2 Baremetal with Jun's Mod v1.04b                           | 
 | DS918+ 6.2.1/6.2 Baremetal with Jun's Mod v1.04b Reinstall                 |
 |*DS918+ 6.2.1/6.2 VMWare/ESXI with Jun's Mod v1.04b                         |
 |                                                                            |
 +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

      Use the ^ and v keys to select which entry is highlighted.       Press enter to boot the selected OS, `e' to edit the commands .  before booting or `c' for a command-line.                    

====================================================================      

image.png.400cfbbf822961a023507959b1a45746.png

 

image.png.3987972c7e4bd1781d218ce893a3d4b7.png
                                                             

image.png.3987972c7e4bd1781d218ce893a3d4b7.png

 

 

THIS IS THE ONLY SCREEN I SEE on the SERIAL CONSOLE

image.png.f49225fcfbeb643d85f7aee5dc602619.png

 

What am I missing?

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I am having this strange issue where Jun Loader 1.04(b) with DS918+ is not working with ESXi 6.7SU2. 
In order to troubleshoot, i turned on the serial interface as per instructions above and got the serial connection successfull but it does not show anything other than the initial screen of GNU Grub version 2.02
====================================================================      
                             GNU GRUB  version 2.02
 +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 | DS918+ 6.2.1/6.2 Baremetal with Jun's Mod v1.04b                           | 
 | DS918+ 6.2.1/6.2 Baremetal with Jun's Mod v1.04b Reinstall                 |
 |*DS918+ 6.2.1/6.2 VMWare/ESXI with Jun's Mod v1.04b                         |
 |                                                                            |
 +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
      Use the ^ and v keys to select which entry is highlighted.       Press enter to boot the selected OS, `e' to edit the commands .  before booting or `c' for a command-line.                    
====================================================================      
image.png.400cfbbf822961a023507959b1a45746.png
 
image.png.3987972c7e4bd1781d218ce893a3d4b7.png
                                                             
image.png.3987972c7e4bd1781d218ce893a3d4b7.png
 
 
THIS IS THE ONLY SCREEN I SEE on the SERIAL CONSOLE
image.png.f49225fcfbeb643d85f7aee5dc602619.png
 
What am I missing?
"Port URI" is set to "telnet://:8601" at my installation and it's working since years.
But you use the wrong network card type: should be "E1000e" and not "E1000".
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Yes I tried every option out there , including E1000, E1000e, VXMNet3 ... but no luck...

I figured out after some searching that my CPU is old one Xeon - SandyBridge on this particular test. 

Same server , no issues with the 3615 or 3617 install.

I believe that might be the issue. 

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Yes I tried every option out there , including E1000, E1000e, VXMNet3 ... but no luck...
I figured out after some searching that my CPU is old one Xeon - SandyBridge on this particular test. 
Same server , no issues with the 3615 or 3617 install.
I believe that might be the issue. 
Yes that's exactly the issue: your cpu does not have the needed instructions for the newest DSM. But in my case the 3615xs-image is working stable and without issues for a long time. So either upgrade your cpu/motherboard or stay at 3615/3617.
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  • 3 months later...

You can also connect two serial ports on 2 VM's together.

 

So you configure serial port as named pipe "DSMserial1", near end: server, connect to virtual machine.

On a another (management) VM configure serial port as named pipe "DSMserial1", near end: client, connect to virtual machine.

 

Now on the management VM open putty (or other terminal software) with serial port COM1 and you will get the output of the serial port of the DSM VM.

Like a virtual serial cable from one VM to the other.

Edited by StanG
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