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Accessing virtual machine consoles

Accessing virtual machine consoles in the OpenShift Container Platform web console

You can connect to virtual machines by using the serial console or the VNC console in the OpenShift Container Platform web console.

You can connect to Windows virtual machines by using the desktop viewer console, which uses RDP (remote desktop protocol), in the OpenShift Container Platform web console.

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

  1. In the OpenShift Virtualization console, click Workloads → Virtualization from the side menu.

  2. Click the Virtual Machines tab.

  3. Select a virtual machine to open the Virtual Machine Overview page.

  4. Click Console. The VNC console opens by default.

  5. Select Disconnect before switching to ensure that only one console session is open at a time. Otherwise, the VNC console session remains active in the background.

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

  7. Click Disconnect to end the console session.

  8. 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

  1. In the OpenShift Virtualization console, click Workloads → Virtualization from the side menu.

  2. Click the Virtual Machines tab.

  3. Select a virtual machine to open the Virtual Machine Overview page.

  4. Click the Console tab. The VNC console opens by default.

  5. Optional: Open the VNC console in a separate window by clicking Open Console in New Window.

  6. Optional: Send key combinations to the virtual machine by clicking Send Key.

Connecting to a Windows virtual machine with RDP

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

  1. In the OpenShift Virtualization console, click Workloads → Virtualization from the side menu.

  2. Click the Virtual Machines tab.

  3. Select a Windows virtual machine to open the Virtual Machine Overview screen.

  4. Click the Console tab.

  5. In the Console list, select Desktop Viewer.

  6. In the Network Interface list, select the layer-2 NIC.

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

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

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

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

Copying the SSH command from the web console

Copy the command to access a running virtual machine (VM) via SSH from the Actions list in the web console.

Procedure

  1. In the OpenShift Container Platform console, click Workloads → Virtualization from the side menu.

  2. Click the Virtual Machines tab.

  3. Select a virtual machine to open the Virtual Machine Overview page.

  4. From the Actions list, select Copy SSH Command. You can now paste this command onto the OpenShift CLI (oc).

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

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  1. 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

  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 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

  1. 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

  2. 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
...

  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.