August 2015 – @vmnick0 Blog….

When the 5.X vCenter webclient released you could navigate to a VM and click a link to generate a VM Console URL. It looks something like this:
https://vcenter.pcli.me:9443/vsphere-client/vmrc/vmrc.jsp?vm=urn:vmomi:VirtualMachine:vm-VirtualMachine-vm-409:3a3sf62s-q41g-172d-aj91-a71251658v87

This 5.X console URL was made up of three data variables:
vcenter + VM MoRef + vCenter UUID — See below in the parentheses.
https://(your vcenter server):9443/vsphere-client/vmrc/vmrc.jsp?vm=urn:vmomi:VirtualMachine:vm-VirtualMachine-vm-( you vms MORef Number ):(vcenters UUID)

Now this URL will not work for vCenter 6.x!
If attempted, you will see this in your browser:

The formatting was changed to this:

https://vcenter.pcli.me:9443/vsphere-client/webconsole.html?vmId=vm-VirtualMachine-vm-409&vmName=vm01&serverGuid=3a3sf62s-q41g-172d-aj91-a71251658v87&host=vCenterPSC01.pcli.me:443&sessionTicket=cst-VCT

Lets break down this URL:
https://vcenter.pcli.me:9443                                                                             (— vcenter again with port)
/vsphere-client/webconsole.html?vmId=vm-VirtualMachine-vm-                      (— String changed from vmrc to webconsole…)
409                                                                                                                    (— VM moRef ID)
&vmName=vm01                                                                                              (— The Name of the VM you want the console of)
&serverGuid=3a3sf62s-q41g-172d-aj91-a71251658v87                                  (— vCenters UUID)
&host=vCenterPSC01.pcli.me:443                                                                   (— the FQDN of your vCenter Platform Service Controller)
&sessionTicket=cst-VCT                                                                                  (— and a final string)

This last string (&sessionTicket=cst-VCT) was something I had to play with.. Using just these characters allowed the browser to prompt for my username/password and then give me a VM console.

Here are the PowerCLI commands to find your VM MoRef ID and vCenter UUID.
— Launch a PowerCLI session and run these oneLiners
—- $global:DefaultVIServers.InstanceUUid = This will give you your vCenter UUID
— ((get-vm “vm01”).id).split(“-“)[2] = This will get your VM MoRef ID
—- You can use this one too if you like Views…. (get-view -viewtype virtualmachine -filter @{“name” = “vm01”}).moref.value

Here are the 5.X and 6.X VM consoles… if interested in the differences.
5.X

6.X

Twitter has exploded with this new VMware fling.
https://labs.vmware.com/flings/esxi-embedded-host-client
Here is a quick snip from @lamw about it – http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2015/08/new-html5-embedded-host-client-for-esxi.html

Normally I would throw this in the home lab, play with it for a few minutes, brag to some friends, then get bored and let it absorb into long term brain matter.
But, this is really cool. Cool enough to log into the ole’ blog site and type some words about it!

Steps to awesomeness:
1 – Download the VIB @ http://download3.vmware.com/software/vmw-tools/esxui/esxui-2976804.vib
2 – SCP or upload it to a datastore on the host you want to test with.
3 – Install the VIB – “esxcli software vib install -v esxui-2976804.vib”
– you may need to throw in a “cp esxui-2976804.vib /var/log/VMware” or use the full path in the above command. Which ever is your favorite flavor.
4 – Then navigate to the new client – https://hostname/ui (example : https://esx01.vmnick0.me/ui)
5 – Log in with your host user/pass – either root or AD if you have AD integration working with your hosts.
6 – Magic…..

Some cool things to note:
– It has performance graphs… that load instantly…
– You can review almost all things related to that host on a single page or, at most, one click away from that information.
– The simple potential for this GUI is amazing. I hope this continues to be developed.

Below is a snap of the Host management page:

Below is a snap of the VM management page:
The awesome part is the working console which you can view inside the same HTML5 window or have it break out into a new window.

It has very little in terms of storage eye candy but it looks like its coming.
I was sad to see VSAN Health Monitoring not available when I installed the VIB on my VSAN cluster/host. Maybe I need to check configs again.

It has some other very useful items and some with an “under construction” logo. Lets hope this keeps going!

You really need to throw it on a host to check it out to see its full colors and potential.
If I were to ask for one feature to prioritize, it would be more host stats and graphs. The ability to see current network and Storage IO/Latency would be amazing.

@vmnick0 Blog….

Month: August 2015

vSphere 6 – VM Console URL Shortcut.

New vSphere Host Client – HTML5