Remote desktop on VMware ESXi

[MariusRoma]

VMware Workstation includes a "Remote desktop" feature to access guest VMs: is there anything similar in VMware ESXi?

Regards

marius

[Troy_Clavell]

You'll have to use the "Remote Console"  You can do this by logging into vSphere and opening the console of the guest in question, or by installing vCenter and the vSphere Web Web Client. The vSphere Web Client will allow you to install the client integration plugin. WIth that said, the plugin is only used while using the Web Client.

You may also look into the RDP plugin by Xtravirt - http://xtravirt.com/vsphere-client-rdp-plug-in

For what it's worth, to connect to your guests, it's probably easier to do it in the same fashion you would do with your physical servers.

[tigerdeccan]

Use SSH , something like putty .

In order to console , Like Troy said , you will need  HPs iLO, KVM   or any other vendor specific virtual connectivity tool

[nirvy]

There are better ways of course, but you can also use VNC by adding the following values to the VMX file of each VM you want to enable it for:

RemoteDisplay.vnc.enabled = "TRUE"
RemoteDisplay.vnc.port = "5900"
RemoteDisplay.vnc.password = "vncpassword"

You will need a VNC client such as UltraVNC http://sourceforge.net/projects/ultravnc/, then you just connect to the esxi host on port 5900 (in this example).

Tested on ESXi 4.1.  Version 5 may require firewall adjustments.