Accessing virtual machine consoles - Virtual machines | OpenShift Virtualization

About virtual machine console sessions
Connecting to the virtual machine with the web console
Accessing virtual machine consoles by using CLI commands

OpenShift 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.

About virtual machine console sessions

You can connect to the VNC and serial consoles of a running virtual machine from the Console tab on the Virtual Machine Details page of the web console.

The VNC Console opens by default when you navigate to the Console tab. You can open a connection to the serial console by clicking the VNC Console drop-down list and selecting Serial Console.

Console sessions remain active in the background unless they are disconnected. To ensure that only one console session is open at a time, click the Disconnect before switching check box before switching consoles.

You can open the active console session in a detached window by clicking the Open Console in New Window button or by clicking Actions → Open Console.

Options for the VNC Console

Send key combinations to the virtual machine by clicking Send Key.

Options for the Serial Console

Manually disconnect the Serial Console session from the virtual machine by clicking Disconnect.
Manually open a Serial Console session to the virtual machine by clicking Reconnect.

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

Ensure you are in the correct project. If not, click the Project list and select the appropriate project.
Click Workloads → Virtualization from the side menu.
Click the Virtual Machines tab.
Select a virtual machine to open the Virtual Machine Overview screen.
In the Details tab, click the virt-launcher-<vm-name> pod.
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 Console tab in the Virtual Machine Overview screen of the web console.

Procedure

In the OpenShift Virtualization console, click Workloads → Virtualization from the side menu.
Click the Virtual Machines tab.
Select a virtual machine to open the Virtual Machine Overview page.
Click Console. The VNC console opens by default.
Click the VNC Console drop-down list and select Serial Console.
Optional: Open the serial console in a separate window by clicking Open Console in New Window.

Connecting to the VNC console

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

Procedure

In the OpenShift Virtualization console, click Workloads → Virtualization from the side menu.
Click the Virtual Machines tab.
Select a virtual machine to open the Virtual Machine Overview page.
Click the Console tab. The VNC console opens by default.
Optional: Open the VNC console in a separate window by clicking Open Console in New Window.

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 NIC attached to the virtual machine.
An RDP client installed on a machine on the same network as the Windows virtual machine.

Procedure

In the OpenShift Virtualization console, click Workloads → Virtualization from the side menu.
Click the Virtual Machines tab.
Select a Windows virtual machine to open the Virtual Machine Overview screen.
Click the Console tab.
In the Console list, select Desktop Viewer.
In the Network Interface list, select the layer-2 NIC.
Click Launch Remote Desktop to download the console.rdp file.
Open an RDP client and reference the console.rdp file. For example, using remmina:
```
$ remmina --connect /path/to/console.rdp
```
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 (VM) after you expose port 22 on it.

The virtctl expose command forwards a virtual machine instance (VMI) port to a node port and creates a service for enabled access. The following example creates the fedora-vm-ssh service that forwards traffic from a specific port of cluster nodes to port 22 of the <fedora-vm> virtual machine.

Prerequisites

You must be in the same project as the VMI.
The VMI you want to access must be connected to the default pod network by using the masquerade binding method.
The VMI you want to access must be running.
Install the OpenShift CLI (oc).

Procedure

Run the following command to create the fedora-vm-ssh service:
```
$ virtctl expose vm <fedora-vm> --port=22 --name=fedora-vm-ssh --type=NodePort (1)
```
1 <fedora-vm> is the name of the VM that you run the fedora-vm-ssh service on.
Check the service to find out which port the service acquired:
```
$ oc get svc
```

Example output

NAME            TYPE       CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)           AGE
fedora-vm-ssh   NodePort   127.0.0.1      <none>        22:32551/TCP   6s

+ In this example, the service acquired the 32551 port.

Log in to the VMI via SSH. Use the ipAddress of any of the cluster nodes 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

Connect to the graphical interface with the virtctl utility:
```
$ virtctl vnc <VMI>
```
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 NIC 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 NIC attached to the virtual machine.
An RDP client installed on a machine on the same network as the Windows virtual machine.

Procedure

Log in to the OpenShift Virtualization cluster through the oc CLI tool as a user with an access token.
```
$ oc login -u <user> https://<cluster.example.com>:8443
```

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

$ oc describe vmi <windows-vmi-name>

Example output

...
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
...

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.
Open an RDP client and use the IP address copied in the previous step for the connection.
Enter the Administrator user name and password to connect to the Windows virtual machine.