Serial console to a VM via telnet

[koenig]

I want to run OpenVMS 9.2 on my Intel MacBook. I can do that with VirtualBox but since VMware is also a supported platform according to VMS Software I wanted to try it out on Fusion. The problem is that I can not find a way to connect a TCP port (telnet) to a serial port, in the same way that I can in VirtualBox.

Is this possible? 

[Technogeezer]

By default Fusion's serial port is designed to provide output of the port to a disk file. The options that are described in the OpenVMS installation guide for VMware (use network, use named pipe) don't exist in the Fusion GUI.

I've found two old posts that may be useful. Here's one for using a named pipe: https://community.broadcom.com/vmware-cloud-foundation/communities/community-home/digestviewer/viewthread?MessageKey=46c50666-5227-488a-9db8-f8a2be9296a7&CommunityKey=0c3a2021-5113-4ad1-af9e-018f5da40bc0

Your terminal emulator would need to be able to communicate via the shared pipe. 

Here;s one for using a network (telnet) connection as a serial port: https://community.broadcom.com/vmware-cloud-foundation/communities/community-home/digestviewer/viewthread?MessageKey=ccd772d2-c10e-4bbc-87f1-228fa577e19f&CommunityKey=0c3a2021-5113-4ad1-af9e-018f5da40bc0

I have no idea if these will work for current Fusion versions. But the VSI folks claim in their V9.2-3 release notes (https://docs.vmssoftware.com/vsi-openvms-x86-64-v923-release-notes/), section 2.2 to have tested OpenVMS with VMware Fusion 13.5.2 - perhaps you might ask them for their definitive guidance on what they changed since they say they've tested Fusion.

You may also want to check to see if the "Guest Console" feature works for you (new in V9.2-3)

You don't say what version of macOS you're running.  macOS no longer includes telnet as of macOS High Sierra. (telnet is a woefully obsolete and insecure communications protocol). You may need to use a third party terminal emulator,  install telnet from Homebrew or MacPorts, or compile telnet yourself from GNU source.

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- Paul (technogeezer)
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[koenig]

I know of the upcoming "Guest Console" feature and that should work – the idea is that you should be able to log in to the console through the graphical terminal, rather than a serial port. The serial port is there for historical reasons and is in itself a security risk since you can halt the system just by pressing Ctrl-P (jumps out of execution and into console mode).

The problem is that it is not released under the hobbyist licensing scheme yet. I can download the release version but I probably need all sorts of licenses to get it running – something  that is pre-installed in the hobbyist image.

Anyway, thanks for the tip and the link to the post! I'll definitely try that one. And I'll try to contact the VSI chaps if I run into troubles.

Oh, and I am on macOS Ventura and I invariably install telnet on all my Macs with Homebrew the first thing I do… 😉