Named pipe

Tera Term can connect the serial console of the virtual machine by using the VMware and Hyper-V named pipe.

   +---------------+ 
   | Guest OS      |
   |               |
   +----[COM]------+
   | Hypervisor    |
   +------+--------+
          |
          |                              +-------------+
          |                              |             |
          +-------[Named pipe]-----------+  Tera Term  |
                                         |             |
                                         +-------------+

Linux on VMware

For example, the VMware Player 3.1.5 and Fedora 16 combination is described below.

The VMware Player 3 later can support the named pipe. Please upgrade your VMware Player if you use the older version. Next, call the Virtual machine configuration dialog - Hardware - Serial port, and select the use the named pipe. Please input as follows.

\\.\pipe\vmware-serial-port
This terminal is server.
The destination host is application.

Fedora 16 does not use the serial console by default. So, the boot loader, Linux boot message and the login prompt can output on the serial console by changing the GRUB2 configuration.
The GRUB2 configuration is described below. A user needs to edit the /etc/default/grub by using the superuser privilege.

GRUB_TIMEOUT=5
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR="Fedora"
GRUB_DEFAULT=saved
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="rd.md=0 rd.dm=0 rd.lvm.lv=VolGroup/lv_swap quiet rhgb rd.lvm.lv=VolGroup/lv_root rd.luks=0 LANG=ja_JP.UTF-8  KEYTABLE=jp106"
GRUB_TERMINAL="serial console"
GRUB_SERIAL_COMMAND="serial --unit=0 --speed=38400"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="console=tty0 console=ttyS0,38400"

Next, please reflect the new configuration by using the grub2-mkconfig command.

# grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

Thus, the named pipe(\\.\pipe\vmware-serial-port) will be created after the VMware launches the Fedora. So, Tera Term can connect to the virtual machine by using the named pipe. However, the Magic SysRq key can not be worked after doing "Send break" of Tera Term because the break signal is not be supported.

For your reference, the serial configuration is different from the GRUB2 because the Legacy GRUB is used at Fedora 15 before. A user needs to edit directly the /boot/grub/grub.conf by using the superuser privilege.

default=0
timeout=5
#splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
serial --unit=0 --speed=38400
terminal --timeout=5 serial console
title Fedora (2.6.38.6-26.rc1.fc15.i686.PAE)
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.38.6-26.rc1.fc15.i686.PAE ro root=/dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_root rd_LVM_LV=VolGroup/lv_root rd_LVM_LV=VolGroup/lv_swap rd_NO_LUKS rd_NO_MD rd_NO_DM LANG=ja_JP.UTF-8 KEYTABLE=jp106 selinux=0 rhgb quiet console=tty0 console=ttyS0,38400
        initrd /initramfs-2.6.38.6-26.rc1.fc15.i686.PAE.img

Windows Server on Hyper-V

For example, the Windows Server is working on the virtual machine by using the Hyper-V of the Windows Server 2008 R2.

Please specify the named pipe on the COM port configuration of the Hyper-V. The named pipe format is "\\.\pipe\". Tera Term can connect to the COM port of the Hyper-V by using the named pipe. Also, the SAC(Special Administration Console) can not be used when the guest OS is not Windows Server series. If a user uses the desktop version Windows, Tera Term can connect to the named pipe, however the user can not do anything because the Windows does not support the SAC.