Vmware Vsphere Client 5.1 For Mac

 

Vsphere client 5.5 download47 comments

Assign a static MAC Address in the vSphere Client. You can assign static MAC addresses to a powered-down virtual machine's virtual NICs.

Ok, you read the title of this post, and you’re thinking “hey, this guy must be goin’ cuckoo for coco puffs.” No, this is FOR REAL. Here’s the deal: with the help of some people I met this week (Micheal Bell and the rest of the students from my VI3 Fast Track class in Irvine), I figured out how to run the vSphere Client on my Mac OS X. This is something that I’ve wanted to get up and running for a long time, ever since I converted from the Church of Gates and bowed down to the one true computer deity – the all enlightened Steve Jobs. That’s right folks…I’ve just plucked a bright shiny Apple from the Tree of Virtual Knowledge.

Vsphere Client Download

Let’s face it. All of us that use Macs would really love to have a native vSphere Client from VMware, but this is something that I don’t think they are going to focus on very much, at least in the near future. Up until now, If you wanted to run the vSphere Client on Mac OS X, you could go about implementing that via VMware Fusion by running a VM in Unity mode. If you didn’t know about Unity view, it removes or hides the VM from the screen and simply displays the applications that are running in the VM. That’s great and all – and I personally love VMware Fusion and think it’s a freaking awesome product – but I always thought it would be so much better to just have a client on Mac OS X that didn’t require me to load a VM just to get access to it.

Well, as the Beatles said, “I get by with a little help from my friends.” The other day, we finally figured out a way to get access to the vSphere Client on Mac OS X. Because this solution has only been done in a select few environments, it work for some but not others… so don’t hate! So far this has worked for me at my office and while connected remotely to my environments via VPN.

The way I got it to work was by using a few open source components and by installing a few extra bits of software on my Mac. I have to say that I didn’t really invent the wheel here. All I did was use X11, MacPorts, rdesktop, and Seamlessrdp to create a remote terminal session to a Windows Server 2003 R2 VM running in a remote VMware Fusion VM and also another one hosted on an ESX Server in my lab. Here is a step by step walkthrough detailing what I did and how I got everything flowing:

  • Install X11 on your Mac’s, you can find that on your Mac OS X DVD or it can even be downloaded from the web.
  • Go to the MacPorts site and download the version of the tools that matches your Mac. MacPorts also known as DarwinPorts is a free/open source package management system that simplifies the installation of software on the Mac OS X and Darwin operating systems.
  • After installing the MacPorts packages, open a terminal and run the ports update command to update the application to the latest and greatest version: sudo /opt/local/bin/port -v selfupdate
  • Install the rdesktop client with MacPorts by typing the following command in the Terminal: sudo /opt/local/bin/port install rdesktop
  • After the application is installed, confirm that you have the latest version of rdesktop by typing: /opt/local/bin/rdesktop scroll to the top of the Terminal windows and see that you have rdesktop version 1.6.0.
  • On the Windows Server 2003 VM, configure a user account that has permissions to access the vSphere environment. This could be a local system or Active Directory based account.
  • Configure the Windows Server 2003 R2 to allow remote desktop connections, and make sure to add the users that will be allow to connect to that system via RDP.
  • Install the vSphere Client on the Wndows Server 2003 R2 server
  • Modify the Windows Path Environment Variable and add the path of the directory where the vSphere Client executable file is located, the default path is always: C:Program FilesVMwareInfrastructureVirtual Infrastructure ClientLauncher make sure to put a semi-colon ; at the end of the path currently listed in the variable value field.
Environment Variables
  • Download the seamlessrdp application and extract it to the root of the system drive called seamlessrdp
  • Test the connection to the Windows Server 2003 by opening a session from the Mac by typing the following command in the Terminal window: /opt/local/bin/rdesktop <ip or FQDN> A remote desktop windows should appear if everything is working correctly and you can connect to the system on the network.
  • Once the connection to the system works, test the seamlessrdp connection to the vSphere Client from the Mac by typing the following command on the Terminal window: /opt/local/bin/rdesktop -A -s “c:seamlessrdpseamlessrdpshell.exe VpxClient” -u username -p password -a 16 FQDN or IP

syntax breakdown:

Vsphere Client 6.5

  • -A = Start application in seamless mode
  • -s = Specifies the path to the location of the Seamless files
  • -u = Username
  • -p = Password
  • -a = Color bits (8, 16, or 32)

After the connection is made to the client, the capability to connect CD-ROM, Floppies is not available because it’s an obvious remote connection.

You can now launch the application from the terminal everytime or you can setup an icon for it so you can keep it in the dock.

Setting up Icon To Launch vSphere Client application:

  • Use a text editor and open a new document
  • Make sure is set to a plain text format
  • type the command used to connect to the Windows Server 2003
  • Save the file as vSphereClient and use the .command extension. Go to the location where the file is saved and use the Get Info and select to hide the extension on that file. This way you dont have to see that .command on the file and it looks like a regular icon in the dock.
  • Make the file executable by opening the Terminal application and entering the following command: sudo chmod 777 /path/to/vSphereClient.command file
  • You can now change the icon of the file to something you like or something that identifies with VMware.

Vmware Vsphere Client 5.5 Download

This worked great with Windows Server 2003 R2 as the target server that I used to host the vSphere client, but when I tried the same steps listed on a Windows Server 2008 they didn’t work. I was able to open a remote desktop session to the VM but the session was a bif window and it didnt opent he application at all. So If any one with skills on UNIX, Linux, OS X can get this to work with Windows Server 2008 please let me know. Get ready to bite your chompers into that apple!

vSphere Client on Mac OS X Demo

Many of you may have wanted to run a Mac OS X virtual machine in your vSphere setup but get hit with the error that darwin11–64Guest is not supported, as outlined in VMware KB 2006093. As the KB explains that this is because you must be running Apple certified hardware to run a Mac OS X virtual machine. I’m sure that this has to do with the licensing of the OS X product. But you may want to run a vm or two to test software in your environment.

The Workaround

Luckily the heavy lifting to get around this has been done by InsanelyMac user Donk. He has created an unlocker tool for non-Apple hardware to be able to boot Mac OS X virtual machines. His tool works for other versions of VMware like Workstation but I’m going to focus on using it for ESXi.

There are two different versions of his unlocker utility, one for ESXi 5.0/5.1/5.5 and another for ESXi 6.0. Make sure that you use the appropriate utility for the version of your ESXi host.

Vmware Vsphere Client 5.1 Manual

How It’s Done

ESXi 6.0

Vmware Vsphere Client Download

Download Mac OS X Unlocker for VMware V2 (currently V2.0.6) from the InsanelyMac download page.

  1. Extract unlocker206.zip to a folder on your computer.
  2. Upload the contents to a datastore on your ESXi host.
  3. Put your host in maintenance mode.
  4. Enable the ESXi shell by following these directions if you haven’t already done so.
  5. Open the ESXi shell.
  6. Navigate to the directory on the datastore where the unlocker was uploaded to:

    Where Datastore is the datastore name where the patch file was uploaded to, and DirectoryName is the directory you created on the datastore.

  7. Make the install script executable.
  8. Run the install script.
  9. Reboot the ESXi host:
  10. Exit maintenance mode, and enjoy.
  11. Use the darwin.iso file in the tools folder to mount and install VMware Tools.

Vmware Esxi Client

ESXi 5.0/5.1/5.5

Vsphere Client For Mac

Download Mac OS X Unlocker for VMware (currently V1.3.0) from the InsanelyMac download page.

  1. Extract unlocker-all-v130.zip to a folder on your computer.
  2. Upload the contents to a datastore on your ESXi host.
  3. Put your host in maintenance mode.
  4. Enable the ESXi shell by following these directions if you haven’t already done so.
  5. Open the ESXi shell.
  6. Navigate to the directory on the datastore where the unlocker was uploaded to:

    Where Datastore is the datastore name where the patch file was uploaded to, and DirectoryName is the directory you created on the datastore.

  7. Make the install script executable.
  8. Run the install script.
  9. Reboot the host.
  10. Exit Maintenance Mode, and enjoy.
  11. Use the darwin.iso file in the tools folder to mount and install VMware Tools.

Installing Mac OS X

You have to follow certain instructions to install Mac OS X from the installation media. It’s not complicated but it’s not straight forward either. You can view these instructions on the VMware website:

Summary

This quick little fix has been working for me on two virtual machines running Mac OS X 10.10. In the two weeks I’ve been running them I’ve yet to have any issues, performance or otherwise, with using this fix or using the virtual machines. I hope this article helps solve the issue of running Mac OS X on non-certified non-Apple hardware.