This isn't going to fly. Unlike others that may have posted otherwise, many users I have spoken to that have tried the beta (all these were unsolicited angry discussions by the way by users that know I like VMWare - and are threatening to look elsewhere for virtualization products) do use and want continued direct console access, not RDP client access. I don't have to repeat the comments about the fact that Web interfaces for complex tasks are completely unsuitable. Don't go crazy on the Web UI thing. Novell did the same thing with their NetWare server and it may have acctually accelerated their downfall instead of stemming it. Their Web UI is several iterations ahead of yours and it's still nowhere near the usability and reliability that their older ndsmanager and nwadmin apps used to be. And of course Novell dropped the ball by not having a UI directly on the server.

Microsoft is watching and will eat you alive on this. I'd suggest you drop the console-less version of the server now, and bring back the consoled version yesterday; and with EMC's stock price going south, VMWare dragging it down further is one more headache they don't need.

Very nice. Thank you for explaining how to actually log in with the VI client. I thought it was like VMware Server 1 where you used port 902, not port 8333 (or 443, whatever you configured it to). You've made my night! I've now got the tomcat server shut down, and I can use the VI client through my port translating firewall...Very happy me now. Also, some of the performance features are pretty interesting...It's not quite as simple for layout, but there are some things in it that I can and will make use of.

Thank you GnatGoSplat! Want me to FedEx ya a case of Canadian Beer? We've got some great microbrews on the West Coast

Regards,

Tren

i don`t understand why there is such hype with webui`s nowadays. i have seen so many (many!) crappy webuis`s and it`s absolutely absurd what`s going on with this.

everything must have a webui - webui for this, webui for that, webui for my fridge, webui for my toaster - but what advantage has a web-ui when it`s slow, and you need a native plugin for your webbrowser to be able to use it - and having issues after the next browser update?

save that time and work trying to turn a good native application into a webui. put the webui to trash and concentrate on development of native clients instead. webui`s are always worse than a native application.

harsh words - but my opinion.

don` t know for windows, but on linux you may try

service_vmware_mgmt() {
# See how we were called.
case "$1" in
start)
if ; then
echo 'Starting VMware management services:'
vmware_start_hostd
#vmware_start_webAccess

I haven't tried the beta (not enough time or hardware to test it properly), but I'm not a fan of the web interface being the only interface. My reasons, in no particular order:

1. Asking Linux users to download the "official" mozilla.org build of Firefox instead of using the distro-provided package is a non-starter. I hope that's fixed before 2.0 final is released, but as I recall using C++ in Firefox extensions on Linux involves ABI black magic, I am not hopeful.
2. Firefox moves quickly, with major releases that break extensions yearly. Are you willing to keep up?
3. Using a non-browser client gives you more real estate for the console view. Even if you switch the browser to full-screen mode.
4. When the browser crashes, the VMware console crashes. It's easy to recover from, but it's an annoyance.
5. A browser window that I'd use for a VM console would have different settings (e.g. maximized, hide all the status/navigation/bookmark bars, etc.) than one I would for ordinary browsing. As Firefox currently works, it's nontrivial to keep different sets of settings for different windows. When Mozilla's Prism is in a more stable state I think this (and #4) might be less of an issue.
6. As to the "connecting via RDP/NX is a better solution anyway" comment: I often run a VPN client in a virtual machine, and all network traffic to and from the virtual machine is routed to the VPN. In that scenario, I cannot connect to the VM via RDP or NX or some other kind of remote access. I need the console, and it needs to be responsive, and I need a lot of screen real estate.
7. With the web client, as I understand it, I still have to download a binary blob of some kind. From my point of view, that negates one of the advantages (and in this use case, perhaps the only) advantage of a thin client.

This is a beta, we are collecting data, primarily use-case-based. I assume from your post that you were unable to accomplish certain virtual machine configuration tasks. It would be valuable to us if you could elaborate so we can use your feedback to make the product better. Console interaction is one area where there has been a good response, could you outline some of your other use cases? Has performance been a big issue or are there features you expected to see but did not?

Did I miss a post somewhere or an item in the release notes about this? I haven't heard about this. I'm using the Novell/SUSE version of FF on my SLED 10 SP1 laptop and I use third-party extensions with it every day. Granted the VMware one isn't working, but then again it's not working on just about any Linux distro. I didn't think that had anything to do with the flavor of FF. If anything it sounds like a simple environment variable may need to be set to get this going (I can't test this until Monday).

http://communities.vmware.com/message/797465#797465

Joe

I see. You're referring to this text in the manual:

"NOTE You might not be able to use the version of Firefox that comes with your
Linux distribution. Some distributions package Firefox incorrectly, and the
resulting package will not work with VI Web Access."

I don't think this refers to any distribution that will be on Server 2.0's "official" supported hosts list. Obviously there are still many problems with browsers from hosts that are on the supported lists, but leaving those issues aside, I think this is just more of a guideline to say that if you e.g. run some crazy QT-based Firefox build or something like that, and it doesn't work, you could try an "official" build from mozilla.org.