Creation of named pipe or output file name in the form of any path in the service console fails

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Named pipe and output file used for serial and parallel port on virtual machines can only reside on datastores (/vmfs/volumes/datastorename). You cannot create any named pipe or output file name in the form of any path such as /tmp/pipe in the service console.
363033

Environment

VMware ESX 4.0.x
VMware ESX 4.1.x

Resolution

In an ESX virtual machine, you can configure a serial port as the physical serial port, output file, or named pipe.

You can configure the parallel port through the physical parallel port or as the output file.

To configure a physical serial or parallel port in an ESX virtual machine, you must have a physical serial or parallel port in your ESX host.

To configure serial port or parallel port as an output file:

1. In the vSphere Client right-click the ESX virtual machine and select Edit Settings.
2. In the Hardware tab, click Add.
3. Select the device type Serial Port or Parallel Port and click Next.
4. Select the Output to file option and click Next.
5. In the Output File field, enter the name of the output file, or click Browse and select the datastore to store the output file.
6. Select Connect at power on under device status for any supported Windows and Linux guest operating system.
7. To allow the guest operating system to use this serial port in the interrupt mode, deselect Yield CPU on poll. To allow the guest OS to use this serial port in the polled mode, select Yield CPU on poll.
8. Click Next, followed by Finish.

To configure serial port as a named pipe:

1. In the vSphere Client right-click the ESX virtual machine and select Edit Settings.
2. In the Hardware tab, click Add.
3. Select the device type Serial Port or Parallel Port and click Next.
4. Select the Connect to named pipe option and click Next.
5. Enter Pipe Name (for example, pipe1), select Near end (for example, client) and Far end (for example, a process or a virtual machine).
   Note: If you are selecting Far end as a process, you must use the client and server named pipes in a same virtual machine. If you are using Far end as a virtual machine, you must use client and server named pipes in different virtual machines. The following is an example for Far end as a virtual machine:
   
   

   	Virtual Machine-1	Virtual Machine-2
   	Serial Port-1	Serial Port-1
   Pipe name	/vmfs/volumes/storage1/pipe1	/vmfs/volumes/storage1/pipe1
   Near end	Server	Client
   Far end	Virtual machine	Virtual machine
   I/O mode	Polled mode	Polled mode

   
   
6. Select Connect at power on under device status for any supported Windows and Linux guest operating system.
7. To allow the guest operating system to use this serial port in the interrupt mode, deselect Yield CPU on poll. To allow the guest OS to use this serial port in the polled mode select Yield CPU on poll.
8. Click Next, followed by Finish.