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Use Infrastructure Client to manage VMware Server

I'm not sure if it's part of the official documentation to VMware Server, but seeing as a few people failed to connect to their VMware Server 2.x using Infrastructure Client, I thought I'd explain how exactly this can be done.

Why use Infrastructure Client to manage VMware Server

There are three reasons I can think of:

  1. Web-based administration on VMware Server is awfully slow. I must admit it got better in 2.x betas of the server, but web-based management is still far from anything really comfortable. Infrastructure Client seems visibly faster.
  2. Common management interface – Infrastructure Client provides a common interface to manage all your virtual environments, regardless of the VMware virtualization platform supporting them – can be ESX/ESXi or VMware Server.
  3. Access to a full range of configuration parameters – last time I checked, web interface only covered the most used options of managing your VMware Server and VMs. Infrastructure Client is bound to give you access to all the features available, not just the basic ones.

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Useful Desktop Virtualization Links: Sep 21st, 2008

Here are a few links which I enjoyed last week:

Feel free to share more links in the comments, I'm always interested in learning more and helping people share really useful posts!

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VMware Server 2.0 beta 2

VMware Server 2.0

Last Friday saw the long-awaited release of VMware Server 2.0 beta 2, Build 84186.

New features in VMware Server 2.0 beta 2

VMware website highlights the following new features of this VMware Server 2.0 release:

  • Updated VMware Infrastructure (VI) Web Access management interface: With the faster performance, improved stability and broader range of configuration options, the VI Web Access management interface provides a simple, flexible, intuitive and productive management experience. In addition, embedded help files are context sensitive based on the task being performed.
  • Independent virtual machine console: With the new VMware Remote Console, you can access your virtual machine consoles independent of the VI Web Access management interface plus resize the virtual machine console windows as needed.
  • Support for USB 2.0 devices: Transfer data at faster data rates from USB 2.0 devices.
  • Multi-tiered permissions: Configure different levels of permissions to access virtual machines in different ways, including browsing, interacting, configuring and administering virtual machines.
  • New hardware editors: Edit and add devices such as USB 2.0 devices and legacy devices such as floppy drives, serial and parallel ports.
  • Automatically start your virtual machines: Select which virtual machines that you want to automatically start when VMware Server starts. In addition, there is also an option to boot the virtual machine directly into the BIOS Setup Screen.
  • Link to Virtual Appliance Marketplace: Access thousands of pre-built, pre-configured, ready-to-run enterprise applications packaged with an operating system inside a virtual machine. This speeds up time to value and simplifies software development, distribution, and management.

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How To Convert VMware Server 2.0 Beta VMs into VMware Server 1.0.4

I've just finished the first round of VMware Server 2.0 beta testing, and although I quite like the product, it's still not stable enough for my needs, and so I've decided to fall back to VMware Server 1.0.4.

But what happens is that every time you try to use the VMware Server 2.0 virtual machine in VMware Server 1.0.4, you get an error like this:

VMware Server Console error message

"Configuration file was created by a VMware product with more features than this version" may be a correct statement, but chances are that you won't need any of the new features of VMware Server 2.0 to use standard VMs.

Because of this, you can use a simple hack to make the new VMs work with older version of VMware Server: simply change the hardware version back.

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