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7 Replies Last post: Apr 16, 2008 8:44 AM by WoodyZ
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Using virtual serial ports between two machines?

Sep 12, 2007 5:32 AM

Click to view gv3's profile Lurker gv3 4 posts since
Dec 22, 2006
Hi,

I am attempting to use Fusion in the same what that I use Workstation, in that I have two VMs connected over their serial ports, one for console and one for serial debug. I cannot seem to get this to work with Fusion. What am I missing?

Best,
George
Reply Re: Using virtual serial ports between two machines? Sep 12, 2007 9:45 AM
Click to view gv3's profile Lurker gv3 4 posts since
Dec 22, 2006
OK, so it turns out that though the UI does not support the pipe and client/server settings for serial ports, the vmx file does. I now have this on the client side:

serial0.present = "TRUE"
serial0.fileType = "pipe"
serial0.pipe.endPoint = "client"
serial0.yieldOnMsrRead = "TRUE"

serial0.startConnected = "TRUE"

serial0.fileName = "/Volumes/Virtual Machines/VMware/Serial/devbox_com1"

and this on the server side:

serial0.present = "TRUE"
serial0.fileType = "pipe"
serial0.yieldOnMsrRead = "TRUE"

serial0.startConnected = "TRUE"

serial0.fileName = "/Volumes/Virtual Machines/VMware/Serial/devbox_com1"

and all is happy.

Best,
George
Reply Re: Using virtual serial ports between two machines? Sep 12, 2007 10:29 AM
Click to view hawbaker's profile Novice hawbaker 10 posts since
Sep 12, 2007
about the file, devbox_com1:

what kind of file is it ? is it within a VM package or outside ? How do I have to create it ?

Message was edited by:
hawbaker
Reply Re: Using virtual serial ports between two machines? Sep 12, 2007 10:28 AM
in response to: hawbaker
Click to view RDPetruska's profile Guru RDPetruska 13,873 posts since
Jan 11, 2005
Moderator
It should be an ASCII text file on your host - in exactly the path spelled out.
Reply Re: Using virtual serial ports between two machines? Apr 16, 2008 7:35 AM
Click to view sharris595's profile Novice sharris595 7 posts since
Apr 16, 2008
Hi!

I'm trying to use serial ports to communicate between XP VMs running under VMWare Fusion on MAC OS/X. I created the file as specified here (though I don't have the /Volumes/Virtual Machines/VMWare paths I see here-is there something I'm missing? I just created a plain text file on my Mac to handle the traffic, and I set the attributes to be all read-write. I edited my VMWare images to have the same settings as specified here, although Fusion complains that these are non-standard and unsupported settings. Anyone get Hyperterminal to work between VMWare images? I set the baud rate to the same, and no hardware flow control on the serial ports. The default support for serial ports in Fusion is just for files, but I wasn't able to map both images to the same file to share serial port communication, for example. Any thoughts on how one might get this to work? Thanks!

Best,

Steve
Reply Re: Using virtual serial ports between two machines? Apr 16, 2008 7:46 AM
in response to: sharris595
Click to view WoodyZ's profile Champion WoodyZ 6,854 posts since
Apr 22, 2004
Have a look at: VMware Fusion menu > Help > VMware Fusion Help > Managing Virtual Machines > Adding and Configuring a Serial Port
Reply Re: Using virtual serial ports between two machines? Apr 16, 2008 7:51 AM
in response to: WoodyZ
Click to view sharris595's profile Novice sharris595 7 posts since
Apr 16, 2008

Hi-

I see that the VMware Fusion help only allows serial ports on the Mac to be actual files. When I try to specify two VMs using the same file, I get a message from the VM that starts second that the file already exists, and asks whether it should append or overwrite the original file. Does this mean that communicating via serial ports for VMs is not possible? Would writing a quick shell script to read and echo the output of one file into another file work if I mapped each VM to a serial port to a different file, and used this shell script to communicate between them?

Thanks!

Steve


Reply Re: Using virtual serial ports between two machines? Apr 16, 2008 8:44 AM
in response to: sharris595
Click to view WoodyZ's profile Champion WoodyZ 6,854 posts since
Apr 22, 2004
Using the information in in the post above (http://communities.vmware.com/message/748577#748577) I had no problem establishing open communication between two XP Virtual Machines, so it does work.
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