ESXi and serial ports
Had a situation today where a customer asked me if I could monitor the APC UPS running his ESXi server. My plan was to install Powerchute on one of the Windows guest virtual machines running on the ESXi host and then use pass through to the comm port on the host, I’ve used this method before for ESX and VMware Server.
Unfortunately I discovered one of the things which is missing in ESXi is the ability do pass through to comm ports, I’d guess this is due to the service console component being removed in ESXi.
A solution would be to use an IP to Serial adaptor which plugs into a spare network point and connects to your serial device (UPS, Modem etc), you then install driver software into your guest Windows virtual machine which makes it appear as a local comm port, link to such a device is below:
Filed under: VMware ESX/ESXi