Linux

Running VMWare Remote Console outside the browser

Firefox 3.6 update broke my VMWare WebAccess.

Since I updated to Firefox 3.6, I have not been able to run the vmware remote console plugin anymore. Running Linux, this is a pretty important program, as there is no vSphere client for Linux.

How to run VMWare Console from the bash shell?

cd /tmp
IP=the.esx.srv.ip # < fill in esx server ip address here
wget --no-check-certificate https://$IP/ui/plugin/vmware-vmrc-linux-x86.xpi
mv vmware-vmrc-linux-x86.xpi vmware-vmrc-linux-x86.zip
cd ~
mkdir -p bin/vmwareconsole # make directory bin in your own homedir
cd bin/vmwareconsole
unzip /tmp/vmware-vmrc-linux-x86.zip
cd ~/bin
ln -s vmwareconsole/plugins/vmware-vmrc . # make a symlink for easy access
vmware-vmrc # run the console

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17 comments on “Running VMWare Remote Console outside the browser”

  1. Yes usefull, as I get login to vm.
    But thoses running windows, can't get the keyboard & mouse grab working normal.

    Is this due to my kde4.3.5 or what, haven't yet found.

  2. I used a copy of vmware-vmrc-linux-x86.xpi that was on my machine and followed the proceedure detailed above. I figured this would work becase everything worked before upgrading to ubuntu 10.04 which installed firefox 3.6.3

    Upon running vmware-vmrc I get the following file not found error.

    dale@dale-desktop:~/bin$ vmware-vmrc
    exec: 511: /home/dale/bin/vmwareconsole/plugins/bin/vmware-vmrc: not found
    dale@dale-desktop:~/bin$

    If I change to the directory and try to run ./vmware-vmrc I get the same error. Its strange to me because the file does exist as detailed in the directory listings below. I tried to backrev firefox and get a file not found error on firefox-bin even though it is where it is supposed to be. Its like the system is looking for those files somewhere else but not reporting where it is not finding fhe file.

    I created a file called hello (that is just echo hello), gave it the same rights and symlink and it runs fine.

    Is exec putting a prefix on the vmware-vmrc directory?

    Anyway I am stuck any help get vmware console going would be appreciated.

    dale@dale-desktop:~/bin$ ls -l
    total 4
    lrwxrwxrwx 1 dale dale 27 2010-05-27 06:44 hello -> vmwareconsole/plugins/hello
    drwxr-xr-x 4 dale dale 4096 2010-05-26 12:35 vmwareconsole
    lrwxrwxrwx 1 dale dale 33 2010-05-26 12:36 vmware-vmrc -> vmwareconsole/plugins/vmware-vmrc

    dale@dale-desktop:~/bin/vmwareconsole/plugins$ ls -l
    total 792
    drwxr-xr-x 2 dale dale 4096 2010-05-26 13:39 bin
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 dale dale 11 2010-05-27 06:47 hello
    drwxr-xr-x 61 dale dale 4096 2010-05-26 12:37 lib
    drwxr-xr-x 4 dale dale 4096 2008-10-10 12:18 libconf
    -rw-r--r-- 1 dale dale 556324 2008-10-10 12:18 np-vmware-vmrc-2.5.0-122581.so
    -r--r--r-- 1 dale dale 201997 2008-10-10 12:05 open_source_licenses.txt
    drwxr-xr-x 4 dale dale 4096 2008-10-10 12:18 share
    -r-xr-xr-x 1 dale dale 738 2008-10-10 12:18 vmware-desktop-entry-creator
    -r-xr-xr-x 1 dale dale 738 2008-10-10 12:18 vmware-vmrc
    -r-xr-xr-x 1 dale dale 738 2008-10-10 12:18 vmware-vmrc-daemon
    -r-xr-xr-x 1 dale dale 738 2008-10-10 12:18 vmware-vmrc-legacy
    drwxr-xr-x 2 dale dale 4096 2008-10-10 12:18 xkeymap

    dale@dale-desktop:~/bin/vmwareconsole/plugins/bin$ ls -l
    total 4344
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 dale dale 11 2010-05-26 13:36 hello
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 dale dale 23844 2008-10-10 12:18 vmware-desktop-entry-creator
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 dale dale 2586160 2008-10-10 12:18 vmware-remotemks
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 dale dale 1658832 2008-10-10 12:18 vmware-vmrc
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 dale dale 43648 2008-10-10 12:18 vmware-vmrc-daemon
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 dale dale 111704 2008-10-10 12:18 vmware-vmrc-legacy
    dale@dale-desktop:~/bin/vmwareconsole/plugins/bin$

  3. Are you using a different version of the xpi?
    Please follow the instructions, and download it (again) from the esx server. You may have a very old xpi, which is just not compatible.

  6. Actually I forgot to mention, I had a problem downloading the xpi file originally as the 'connection refused' error would come.

    I had to specify the port as 8333 otherwise it would try to download via 443.

    This line works for me.
    wget --no-check-certificate https://$IP:8333/ui/plugin/vmware-vmrc-linux-x86.xpi
    mv vmware-vmrc-linux-x86.xpi vmware-vmrc-linux-x86.zip

  8. @gr: Thanks for your correction. vbundi did it right, but the weblogging software broke the double hyphons.

    @vbundi: Thanks for your suggestion. I think you're describing how to work with "VMWare Server", formerly known as "GSX server". This article describes ESX4, which does bind to port 443 :-)

  9. Thank you.

    Excellent solution. After much searching this is exactly what I was looking for.

  11. I have tried it with the firefox files deep in some sub-dirs but I couldn't use the mouse.

    With this solution it works

    Thanks

    (using Maverick!)

  13. Works awesomely. I used x.x.x.x:8222 for the IP in the script (where the x.x.x.x is your IP address) and in the console I had to use x.x.x.x:8333

  15. Note that the host name the program wants is hostname:portno
    For me (Ubuntu user) the portno is 8333

  16. nach stundenlanger sucherei endlich was das auch funktioniert :)
    vielen dank!

    works great! THANKS!

    port was 8333 on centOS 5.6

  17. For some reason, the 8333 ssl part of vmware was not working for me. I could not find an option to turn of SSL so I set up stunnel on port 443 to connect to the 8222 plain text port and the command line console is now working like a charm.

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