vSPC.py

A server implementing the VMware VSPC serial port multiplexer. We use it to get text mode "serial" consoles from our Linux VMs.

This is a fork of vSPC.py by Zach Loafman / Isilon Systems.

Origins

It was forked from git://git.code.sf.net/p/vspcpy/code in late 2014, at commit 80c3a4b228562351b0eead91a1d99d41aa850fc1 from Sep 6 2011.

You can find the original README at vspcpy on SourceForge.

Given that sourceforge is a rather dubious site now at best I suggest some caution when visiting it.

Note that there are several significantly reworked versions of vSPY.py where the files are split off into a lib directory. Some bugfixes have been incorporated from those ports.

Changes from vSPC.py

1. Add SSL support and --ssl, ssl-cert and --ssl-key options.
2. Changes default ports to proxy=6779 and admin=6780.
3. Syslog output shows the daemon name and PID.
4. Logs a lot more to INFO priority.
5. Add --verbose separate from --debug to log verbosely to syslog but still daemonize.
6. Fix a serious bug where VMs wouldn't migrate if the generated secret contained an IAC (\0xff) character.

Using It

Start the daemon somewhere in server mode. There is no security or authentication on the client connections, so I strongly suggest you start the client ("admin") listeners exclusively on 127.0.0.1.

E.g.,

vSPC.py --server --proxy :6779 --admin 127.0.0.1:6780

Or with SSL:

vSPC.py --server --proxy :6779 --admin 127.0.0.1:6780 \
        --ssl \
        --ssl-cert /etc/ssl/certs/my.cert \
        --ssl-key /etc/ssl/private/my.key

On your VMs, add a serial port device configured as "Use Network" with settings like this:

• Status: Connect At Power On
• Direction: Server
• Port URI: vSPC.py
• Use Virtual Serial Port Concentrator
• vSPC URI: telnet://myhost.example.org:6779
• use 'telnets://' for SSL

When a VM powers on VMware will initiate a connection to vSPC.py that's plumbed to the virtual serial port on the VM. vSPC.py will proxy between that and a listening TCP port on localhost.

Then you can run vSPC.py in admin mode to list the VMs connected:

vSPC.py localhost:6780

You will get output like this, with three colon-separated fields:

vm-name-1:500d1f755b7d4870-e7dd86d3fcda096a:50007
vm-name-2:500d9a712d07349b-f6f3bc7110617dea:50300
vm-name-3:500d7ac1f0e0028a-c47f7b3473c3ca2e:50331

Where vm-name-x is the name of a VMware virtual machine, the midle field is VMware's UUID for the VM, and the final field is the listening TCP port number.

To get the console for a given VM telnet to its port on localhost.