Serial Port in VMware: A Step-By-Step Guide

Note: The URI is the remote end of the serial port where the virtual machine’s serial port must connect.

Once done, you can choose where the virtual port that you’ve just added will send data. You will have the following options:

“Use a physical parallel port” - if you choose this, your VMware serial port’s data will be redirected to a hardware serial port of your host machine.

“Use output file”- in this case, the virtual port’s output is sent to a file that you specify.

“Output to named pipe” - this option lets two guest systems connect directly. Also, you can use it to exchange data between a virtual machine and a program on your host computer.

When you have a Linux host, the name of the pipe can be /tmp/socket or another UNIX socket name. Make sure the name is the same on both the server and the client.

If your goal is to redirect some debugging info to a utility installed on the host, you should do the following:

In the first drop-down list, select This end is the server. In the second drop-down list, select The other end is an application.

Want to connect to another VM? Choose the server in the first drop-down list and The other end is a virtual machine in the second one.

VMware ESXi and serial port connections

VMware provides the ESXi Server - a software product for computer virtualization enterprise-wide. This solution is designed to simplify the centralized management of corporate desktops and software.

When it comes to COM port connections, the ESXi Server offers the ability to send data to the named pipe and to network serial ports.

With ESXi, a serial port may be accessed via a server or client connection. Depending on the connection type you select, the system will either wait for a connection or initiate it. A server connection is usually selected when it’s required to control a virtual machine over a serial port. While a client connection is more preferable when you use a serial port for logging. In this case, the VM will be able to connect to the logging server once the guest OS starts and disconnect if it stops.