[libvirt] Libvirt not able to attach console to VM on ESX hypervisor

[Matthias Bolte]

2013/9/20 Doug Goldstein <cardoe at gentoo.org>:
> On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 1:48 PM, Matthias Bolte
> <matthias.bolte at googlemail.com> wrote:
>> 2013/9/19 Eric Blake <eblake at redhat.com>:
>>> On 09/19/2013 11:11 AM, varun bhatnagar wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> I have started a virtual machine on my ESXi server. I was trying to attach
>>>> a console to it but when I executed the command I got a message saying that
>>>> *"Attaching a console is not supported in the current hypervisor." *Is
>>>> there any way (patch or something) through which I can attach a console to
>>>> my VM.
>>>> The ESX version is 5.1 and I am using latest version of libvirt.
>>>
>>> I don't know if ESX is capable of supporting a console connection; if it
>>> is, it is a matter of finding someone willing to write the patch that
>>> interfaces the ESX interface with libvirt.  Are you willing to take on
>>> that task?
>>
>> ESX supports VM serial console access. I once started to implement
>> this in libvirt, but never got around to finish it. My Linux
>> development box and ESX test server are broken at the moment. I'll
>> have to fix them first.
>>
>> --
>> Matthias Bolte
>> http://photron.blogspot.com
>>
>
> If you give me access (or a copy of ESX), I'll see what I can do since
> I've been hacking at the VMware support in libvirt lately. For that
> matter if you've got access to a copy of VMware Fusion as well that'd
> be awesome so that I can test the changes I'm making instead of
> relying on others to test. *hint any VMware people following the list*

Well, that's not so simple. The initial ESX driver development was
done on two rack server with full ESX licenses in 2009. The servers
and licenses were sponsored as this driver development was part of a
project at my university.

After the project ended I used a Thinkpad as server and a 60 days ESXi
evaluation license. This works because ESXi is happy as long as there
is an CPU with virtualization support and an Intel NIC such as an
e1000, which my Thinkpad has. Storage is provided by an NFS share. The
ESXi 60 days evaluation license lasts quite a while, because the 60
days are for 60 days of runtime.

But because my Linux development box is broken at the moment I have no
ESX system to test, as the Linux box also provided the NFS share. So I
can't help you there at the moment.

-- 
Matthias Bolte
http://photron.blogspot.com