About This Book

This VMware®
Using a Proxy with vSphere Virtual Serial Ports
manual provides information about developing a virtual serial port concentrator for use in the vSphere environment. This guide describes capabilities of a proxy implementation that supports the VMware telnet extension, and provides information about configuring a virtual serial port for a proxy connection.
The use case for a virtual serial port proxy is to maintain specific network connections during vMotion, which is the movement of virtual machines from one ESXi host to another. Note that this method uses telnet so is best deployed in a private data center.

Revision History

The Table 1 summarizes significant changes in each version of this book.
Revision History
Revision Date
Description
01 SEP 2023
Support for VMware vSphere 8.0
02 APR 2020
Support for VMware vSphere 7.0
26 APR 2016
Support for VMware vSphere 6.5
12 MAR 2015
Support for VMware vSphere 6.0
11 MAR 2014
Supported on VMware vSphere 6.0 Beta.
19 SEP 2013
Supported in VMware vSphere 5.5; added information about TCP keepalive configuration and time limit for VMOTION-GOAHEAD response (vmotionLimit).
10 SEP 2012
Supported in VMware vSphere 5.1; added syntax for authentication parameters used with encrypted telnet and telnets connections.
24 AUG 2011
Supported in VMware vSphere 5.0.
13 JUL 2010
Initial release, supported in VMware vSphere 4.1.

Intended Audience

This book is intended for anyone requiring a virtual serial port proxy for vSphere. Proxy developers should have experience with the telnet protocol and network communication.