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Accessing virtual machine consoles

Container-native virtualization provides different virtual machine consoles that you can use to accomplish different product tasks. You can access these consoles through the web console and by using CLI commands.

Virtual machine console sessions

You can connect to the VNC and serial consoles of a running virtual machine from the Consoles tab in the Virtual Machine Details screen of the web console.

There are two consoles available: the graphical VNC Console and the Serial Console. The VNC Console opens by default whenever you navigate to the Consoles tab. You can switch between the consoles using the VNC Console Serial Console list.

Console sessions remain active in the background unless they are disconnected. When the Disconnect before switching checkbox is active and you switch consoles, the current console session is disconnected and a new session with the selected console connects to the virtual machine. This ensures only one console session is open at a time.

Options for the VNC Console

The Send Key button lists key combinations to send to the virtual machine.

Options for the Serial Console

Use the Disconnect button to manually disconnect the Serial Console session from the virtual machine.
Use the Reconnect button to manually open a Serial Console session to the virtual machine.

Connecting to the virtual machine with the web console

Connecting to the terminal

You can connect to a virtual machine by using the web console.

Procedure

  1. Ensure you are in the correct project. If not, click the Project list and select the appropriate project.

  2. Click Workloads → Virtual Machines to display the virtual machines in the project.

  3. Select a virtual machine.

  4. In the Overview tab, click the virt-launcher-<vm-name> Pod.

  5. Click the Terminal tab. If the terminal is blank, select the terminal and press any key to initiate connection.

Connecting to the serial console

Connect to the Serial Console of a running virtual machine from the Consoles tab in the Virtual Machine Details screen of the web console.

Procedure

  1. In the container-native virtualization console, click Workloads → Virtual Machines.

  2. Select a virtual machine.

  3. Click Consoles. The VNC console opens by default.

  4. Click the VNC Console drop-down list and select Serial Console.

Connecting to the VNC console

Connect to the VNC console of a running virtual machine from the Consoles tab in the Virtual Machine Details screen of the web console.

Procedure

  1. In the container-native virtualization console, click Workloads → Virtual Machines.

  2. Select a virtual machine.

  3. Click Consoles. The VNC console opens by default.

Connecting to the RDP console

The desktop viewer console, which utilizes the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), provides a better console experience for connecting to Windows virtual machines.

To connect to a Windows virtual machine with RDP, download the console.rdp file for the virtual machine from the Consoles tab in the Virtual Machine Details screen of the web console and supply it to your preferred RDP client.

Prerequisites

  • A running Windows virtual machine with the QEMU guest agent installed. The qemu-guest-agent is included in the VirtIO drivers.

  • A layer 2 vNIC attached to the virtual machine.

  • An RDP client installed on a machine on the same network as the Windows virtual machine.

Procedure

  1. In the container-native virtualization console, click Workloads → Virtual Machines.

  2. Select a Windows virtual machine.

  3. Click the Consoles tab.

  4. Click the Consoles list and select Desktop Viewer.

  5. In the Network Interface list, select the layer 2 vNIC.

  6. Click Launch Remote Desktop to download the console.rdp file.

  7. Open an RDP client and reference the console.rdp file. For example, using remmina:

    $ remmina --connect /path/to/console.rdp

  8. Enter the Administrator user name and password to connect to the Windows virtual machine.

Accessing virtual machine consoles by using CLI commands

Accessing a virtual machine instance via SSH

You can use SSH to access a virtual machine after you expose port 22 on it.

The virtctl expose command forwards a virtual machine instance port to a node port and creates a service for enabled access. The following example creates the fedora-vm-ssh service that forwards port 22 of the <fedora-vm> virtual machine to a port on the node:

Prerequisites

  • The virtual machine instance you want to access must be connected to the default Pod network by using the masquerade binding method.

  • The virtual machine instance you want to access must be running.

  • Install the OpenShift Command-line Interface (CLI), commonly known as oc.

Procedure

  1. Run the following command to create the fedora-vm-ssh service:

    $ virtctl expose vm <fedora-vm> --port=20022 --target-port=22 --name=fedora-vm-ssh --type=NodePort (1)
    1 <fedora-vm> is the name of the virtual machine that you run the fedora-vm-ssh service on.

  2. Check the service to find out which port the service acquired:

    $ oc get svc
NAME            TYPE       CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)           AGE
fedora-vm-ssh   NodePort   127.0.0.1      <none>        20022:32551/TCP   6s

    In this example, the service acquired the 32551 port.

  3. Log in to the virtual machine instance via SSH. Use the ipAddress of the node and the port that you found in the previous step:

    $ ssh username@<node_IP_address> -p 32551

Accessing the serial console of a virtual machine instance

The virtctl console command opens a serial console to the specified virtual machine instance.

Prerequisites

  • The virt-viewer package must be installed.

  • The virtual machine instance you want to access must be running.

Procedure

  • Connect to the serial console with virtctl:

    $ virtctl console <VMI>

Accessing the graphical console of a virtual machine instances with VNC

The virtctl client utility can use the remote-viewer function to open a graphical console to a running virtual machine instance. This capability is included in the virt-viewer package.

Prerequisites

  • The virt-viewer package must be installed.

  • The virtual machine instance you want to access must be running.

If you use virtctl via SSH on a remote machine, you must forward the X session to your machine.
Procedure

  1. Connect to the graphical interface with the virtctl utility:

    $ virtctl vnc <VMI>

  2. If the command failed, try using the -v flag to collect troubleshooting information:

    $ virtctl vnc <VMI> -v 4

Connecting to a Windows virtual machine with an RDP console

The Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) provides a better console experience for connecting to Windows virtual machines.

To connect to a Windows virtual machine with RDP, specify the IP address of the attached L2 vNIC to your RDP client.

Prerequisites

  • A running Windows virtual machine with the QEMU guest agent installed. The qemu-guest-agent is included in the VirtIO drivers.

  • A layer 2 vNIC attached to the virtual machine.

  • An RDP client installed on a machine on the same network as the Windows virtual machine.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the container-native virtualization cluster through the oc CLI tool as a user with an access token.

    $ oc login -u <user> https://<cluster.example.com>:8443

  2. Use oc describe vmi to display the configuration of the running Windows virtual machine.

    $ oc describe vmi <windows-vmi-name>
    ...
spec:
  networks:
  - name: default
    pod: {}
  - multus:
      networkName: cnv-bridge
    name: bridge-net
...
status:
  interfaces:
  - interfaceName: eth0
    ipAddress: 198.51.100.0/24
    ipAddresses:
      198.51.100.0/24
    mac: a0:36:9f:0f:b1:70
    name: default
  - interfaceName: eth1
    ipAddress: 192.0.2.0/24
    ipAddresses:
      192.0.2.0/24
      2001:db8::/32
    mac: 00:17:a4:77:77:25
    name: bridge-net
...

  3. Identify and copy the IP address of the layer 2 network interface. This is 192.0.2.0 in the above example, or 2001:db8:: if you prefer IPv6.

  4. Open an RDP client and use the IP address copied in the previous step for the connection.

  5. Enter the Administrator user name and password to connect to the Windows virtual machine.