Connect to VM serial port from ESX host

[goolj10]

I have set up a vm with a serial port using the following settings:

Use named pipe:

Pipe name: serial

Near end: serial

Far end: a process

I/O Mode: Yield CPU on poll

Then I installed minicom version 2.1 on the esx host service console.

Next I started the vm and found that the /var/log/vmware/serial unix domain socket got created. So, I configured minicom to use it as the serial port by specifying unix#/var/log/vmware/serial as the serial port to connect to.

FInally, I started minicom and got the following error:

# minicom

Device unix#/var/log/vmware/serial access failed: No such file or directory.

I have verified that /var/log/vmware/serial does in fact exist and should be accessible by root:

# ls -l /var/log/vmware/serial

srwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Jul 1 08:38 /var/log/vmware/serial

Has anyone successfully done this sort of thing? If so, how? I've seen a few posts suggesting that this should be possible, but none referencing the exact details.

[john23]

Please check this KB..

-@m!t

[goolj10]

Hmm... Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure exactly how it relates to my problem though. It seems to apply to GSX server on windows, not ESX, and it doesn't discuss any details on how to connect to the serial port as a client. Specifically, I have a virtual serial port configured on my linux VM (which boots fine). I'd like have my linux VM act as the 'server' and connect to it with a client application (minicom seems the most obvious) on the esx host service console.

I can create a simple python script that will open the unix domain socket created on the esx host and print the received data to the screen to show that the linux vm is sending data over the virtual serial port, but I need a way to connect an actual terminal emulator to the unix domain socket to allow for interaction with the vm over the virtual serial port.

[goolj10]

OK, I think I've figured this one out. This appears to be a bug in minicom the minicom I'm trying to use. I'm using minicom-2.1-3 from the RHEL 5 distribution, recompiled on the esx host. It looks like one of the RH patches to minicom breaks the use of unix domain sockets.

[CLandau2]

Minicom 2.3 on Fedora Core 10 seems to have the same inability to talk to sockets.

So what was the resolution? Were you able to get something like minicom to talk to the virtual serial port via a socket?