VMware has released a new product called vSphere 6.0 Update 1 that includes a new SSH client called VMware Workstation Connector. This new SSH client allows you to connect to VMware Server Console over SSH, which is great for troubleshooting and connecting to your virtual machines from outside of your workstation. If you’re not familiar with SSH, it’s an acronym for Secure Shell. SSH is used to connect to servers and machines over the network, and it’s one of the most popular ways to connect to virtual machines. You can use SSH to connect to any server or machine in your network, regardless of its security level. To use VMware Workstation Connector, you first need to install it on your workstation. Once installed, open up the VMware Workstation Preferences dialog and click on the Add button next to the SSH Client tab. Then enter the following information into the text field: Hostname: myvmware-server-console-ipaddress Port: 22
After a bit of research I discovered that the console communicates on port 902, so I added a port-forwarding rule to an ssh tunnel and was able to easily get on the console and install openssh.
Port Forwarding with ssh Command
In order to open a local port below 1024 you will need to run this command as root, or by using sudo. This will open the local port 902 on your client machine and then forward the connection to the server specified by hostname.com.
At this point you can skip to the last section in the article.
Port Forwarding with SecureCRT
If you use SecureCRT under Windows like I do, just open up your session options and find Port Forwarding in settings and click the Add button for a new forwarded connection.
Enter in a name, and use 902 for both of the Port fields as shown below:
Logging into the Console
Bring up your locally installed VMware Server Console, and use localhost for the Remote host name. You can’t use the “Local host” radio button because it will attempt to connect directly to the service… we want to connect over the SSH tunnel.
And there you are… logged onto your console.
Notes
The server console itself should work fairly well, but if you try and get onto the actual console of one of the virtual machines you should make sure you have a really fast connection… otherwise it’s slower than dirt. I’d really only use this for powering machines on/off, or changing the settings. You might potentially have to change your local firewall settings to allow the port. Putty users should be able to easily adapt the settings above to work for them.
