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5 Replies Last post: Dec 3, 2009 11:22 AM by ckousoulis  

Is VMWare Player 3 online help misleading (concerning vnc)? posted: Nov 5, 2009 2:18 AM

Click to view tmeyer's profile Lurker 1 posts since
Aug 18, 2006
Hello,

I have recently upgraded to VMWare Workstation 7 / VMWare Player 3. Now I am having the problem that what used to work under the previous version of VMWare Player (v2.5.3), namely that you could vnc into a guest running in VMWare Player, doesn't seem to work anymore. It still functions when I use VMWare Workstation to run the guest.

I have already searched the groups here and most of you state that what I want to do is only possible with Workstation but unsupprted by VMWare Player.

However, I swear it did work with VMware Player v2.5.3. Additionally, when you do a search for "vnc" in the online help of VMware Player 3 then you will find the following section:

Configure a Virtual Machine as a VNC Server
You do not need to install specialized VNC software in a virtual machine to configure it as a VNC server.
Procedure
1 Select VM > Settings.

2 Click the Options tab and select Remote Display.

3 Click Enable remote display.

After remote display is enabled and users connect to the virtual machine with a VNC client, use the View Connected Users button on Remote Display settings panel to see a list of the connected users.
4 (Optional) Change the port number.

To connect to multiple virtual machines on the same host with a VNC client, specify a unique port number for each virtual machine. VMware suggests that you use a port number in the range from 5901 to 6001.
Other applications use certain port numbers, and some port numbers are privileged (only the root or Administrator user can listen). For example, the VMware Management Interface uses ports 8333 and 8222. On Linux, only the root user can listen to ports up to port number 1024.
5 (Optional) Set a password for connecting to the virtual machine from a VNC client.

The password can be up to 8 characters long. Because it is not encrypted when the VNC client sends it, do not use a password that you use for other systems.
6 Click OK.


I cannot find the item "Remote Display" under the Options tab in the Player, only in Workstation (which I used to configure the vm).

Can someone help to clarify the situation for me?

My configuration:
Host: Windows Server 2003 SP2 32bit, also tested on Vista SP2 64bit
Guests: Ubuntu, XP
VMware: VMWare Player 3.0.0 build-203739

Thank you very much
Thomas

Click to view Dgebert's profile Lurker 2 posts since
Jul 27, 2007
I am having the same issue. I had a VM that I was using with player that was fully configured with VNC on the previous version. I have updated and now VNC is not working despite the remote.vnc settings being in the VMX file as clear as day.

Was this a change in player 3?
Click to view Dgebert's profile Lurker 2 posts since
Jul 27, 2007
Wow really, no reply on this whatsoever from VMware? That's really disappointing. But I guess we get what we paid for (nothing) so I can only complain so much :).
Click to view jameslin's profile Master VMware Employees 1,119 posts since
Jan 31, 2005
Yes, we intentionally disabled it in Player. We were concerned about security implications if we allowed it without adding the same UI controls that Workstation has.
Click to view JJoel42's profile Enthusiast VMware Employees 87 posts since
Dec 11, 2008
We looked into this and you are correct that the ability to establish a VNC connection to a VM running in Player has been disabled.

When we decided to add the ability to create VMs and edit VM settings to Player, we purposely removed the remote connection configuration screens from the Player VM Settings UI. The developer who implemented the UI thought that it made sense to also disable this feature on the backend to avoid the security concerns that James mentioned above.

I can't make any promises, but we are discussing turning this feature back on in future releases.
Click to view ckousoulis's profile Hot Shot VMware Employees 193 posts since
Dec 14, 2007
However, Player doesn't stop you from running your own VNC server in the guest itself and connecting to the guest exactly as you did before. Unless you ever had a need to access guest via VMware's virtual console, not using VMware's mechnaism is probably a better way to VNC anyway.
I suspect you know this and you were just asking about the strange loss of functionality + incorrect docs, but just in case I want to make sure you aren't blocked in your workflow.

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