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HTML5 console now defaults to HTTPS/WSS in vSphere 5.5 Update 2

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I just found out from one of my readers that with the latest release of vSphere 5.5 Update 2, the HTML5 Console in vCenter Server now goes over a secure connection (HTTPS) as well as using secure web socket connection (WSS) by default. In addition to this change, the HTML5 console port has also been changed from 7331 to 7343. I know customers have asking about this in the past and though this was not possible with previous releases, I am glad to see that VMware Engineering has now added this capablity, another reason to go to vSphere 5.5 Update 2!

This new change is also documented in the vSphere 5.5 Update release notes, which I some how must have missed:

Virtual machines with HTML 5 console in vSphere 5.5 open connections with http:// instead of https://
When the HTML 5 console is launched on a virtual machine, it uses connections like http:// and web sockets like ws:// instead of secure connections like https:// and wss://.

This release resolves the issue by launching the virtual machine console with secure connection over port 7343 instead of the connection over port 7331.

For those of you using my generateHTML5VMConsole script to generate a pre-authenticated HTML5 VM Console, I have updated the script to include a new variable called isvSphere55u2 which will default to "false" but you can set it in the command-line to "true" and this will automatically generate a URL using HTTPS instead of HTTP and use port 7343 instead of 7331. Other than these two minor changes, the URL format is exactly the same and will continue to work.

Here is a quick screenshot of the HTML5 VM Console URL in my lab running vSphere 5.5 Update 2:

vsphere-55u2-html5-console-https-webmks

Quick Tip - Enabling HTML5 VM Console in the vSphere Web Client for IE

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One of the biggest feature that I was most excited for with the initial release of vSphere 5.5, was the full support for Mac OS X with the vSphere Web Client. For many Mac OS X users including myself, this meant you could finally upload OVF/OVA, have support for remote device management such as mounting an ISO or floppy image and the biggest one of them all is having a supported native VM Console (based on HTML5)!

During the early Alpha/Beta release of vSphere 5.5, I started to use the VM Console for Mac OS X quite a bit. One thing that I had noticed was the HTML5 VM console was only used when you are running on a Mac OS X system. If you are on Windows or Linux system, it would still default to VMRC if you did not have the CIP (Client Integration Package) installed which included the VMRC. If you did not have CIP installed, then it would then default to the HTML5 VM Console as an alternative.

Last night, I saw a tweet from Steve Kaplan which seemed to indicate this behavior had changed:

webclient-html5-console-for-internet-explorer-1
I luckily had a Windows system that did not have CIP installed and took a quick look and found the following:

  • On both Chrome and Firefox, the HTML5 VM Console was available, you should see a "Launch Console" under the Virtual Machine summary page
  • On Internet Explorer (9,10 & 11), the HTML5 VM Console was not available and there was no "Launch Console" link

It appears that the behavior did in fact change between Beta and GA of vSphere which was kind of a shame ...

Not being satisfied with the answer, I was still hoping I could help find a solution for my buddy Steve. I think it would still be useful to be able to view the Virtual Machine console w/o having CIP installed, especially if you don't require the functionality of CIP. Thinking about it a for a bit, I had an idea that was worth a shot. I decided to change the User-Agent on the Internet Explorer to make it show up to the vSphere Web Client as Firefox versus Internet Explorer to see what would happen.

webclient-html5-console-for-internet-explorer
To my surprise, as you can see from the screenshot above, it worked! I guess the vSphere Web Client specifically looks for the browser type and if it is Internet Explorer, we only provide the CIP installer versus using the HTML5 VM Console. I'm not exactly sure why that is the case, but at least there is a work around. Here are the instructions if you wish to change the User Agent on IE. I also found that this worked on both IE10 and 11 but not IE9.

Disclaimer: This may not be officially supported by VMware, but you probably already know the drill 😉

This is a nice workaround if you are using the vSphere Web Client, but if you do not want to go through this hassle you can ALWAYS access the HTML5 VM Console by generating the URL itself and this will always work on ALL browsers without any workarounds. Here is a nice script that I created which will handle this for you. Web Client 0, Customer 1 🙂

How to change the default HTML5 VM console port in vSphere 5.5?

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A couple of weeks back I wrote an article on how to generate a pre-authenticated HTML5 VM console link in vSphere 5.5 which allows a user to access the new HTML5 VM console from any operating system including Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. In the article I also provided a script to automatically generate the HTML5 VM console URL given a VM name which looks something like the following:

http://reflex.primp-industries.com:7331/console/?vmId=vm-23&vmName=VCSA&host=reflex.primp-industries.com&sessionTicket=cst-VCT-5254c455-4340-2185-e149-01ce44b146e1--tp-4A-88-17-7C-F5-D0-79-E6-9D-A1-E3-83-97-52-97-EA-E5-D3-D8-07&thumbprint=4A:88:17:7C:F5:D0:79:E6:9D:A1:E3:83:97:52:97:EA:E5:D3:D8:07

If you have tried out the new HTML5 VM console which is enabled only for a Mac OS X system using the new vSphere Web Client 5.5, you may have noticed it opens up a connection on port 7331 by default. However, this port is actually dynamic and could change if the underlying operating system hosting the vSphere Web Client is already in use. If you are running on the VCSA (vCenter Server Appliance), there is a good chance that this will be the default port but for a Windows based installation, that may or may not be the case.

If you wish to find out what the default port is, you can take a look at the vSphere Web Client log file and search for the keyword "Djetty.port". On the VCSA, the log is located in /var/log/vmware/vsphere-client/logs/vsphere_client_virgo.log and here is a screenshot of what that looks like:

To change the default port, you will need to edit the vSphere Web Client configuration property file located in /var/lib/vmware/vsphere-client/webclient.properties for the VCSA and there is an equilvent for a Windows system as well. You will need to add the following entry:

html.console.port = PORT-NUMBER

Once you are done, you will need to save your changes and restart the vSphere Web Client service. On the VCSA, to restart the vSphere Web Client you will need to run the following command:

/etc/init.d/vsphere-client restart

Now if we go back to the vSphere Web Client and open the VM console on a Mac OS X system or generate a URL using the script, you should see the HTML5 VM console is now connecting to the new port.