It may or may not occur to you, that the use of serial-console to a virtual machine on an ESXi-host could be conveniant for you ?!
… this presumption turns into pain in the a*s, when a serial console is MANDATORY 
… for me ? … yesterday !
There might be a bunch of fun-seeking network-admins out there, who did this before - just for FFUUNN, but I had to start-up a cisco-nexus-9k-virtual-appliance on an ESXi because of service-request.
Immediately : |
And starting up nx-os_v without a serial-connection to the vm-appliance, is impossible, because you have to break the nx-os_v self-install-routine : |
Like the most people, who live NOT in the constant humming, climated premise of a google-DC … I had urgently to recall my ESX-skills:
which means: " ‘google the case’ … you cannot be the first one !"
and right !
http://www.hospitableit.com/howto/installing-and-configuring-the-nx-osv-9000-in-esxi/
… since even “good-old-nexus” is seeing updates ( I call it the “Arnold-Schwarzenegger of DC-Networking” … because most of the time a nexus is coping with the cleaning lady
… no google … no facebook … no amazon … just a nexus-based-datacenter … and a boring overhead of time … 
)
… I renewed some screens and wanted to show how CHR can spare a lot of time …
… btw. the free license of a CHR, is limited to 1MB data-xfer … guess you’re fine … serial-wise … until you not cross 921600-8-N-1
your options (please add opportunities, if you see some !)
… install a Windows-VM and use Hyperterminal ( … guess this is the best joke in the whole article)
… debian-netinstall via ssh-console ( + install picocom … best guess … 40 minutes )
… OpenWRT-ova (setup internet-access for your VM and opkg install picocom … best guess 17,5 min. [and you really know what you’re doin’ on the WRT-site !)
→ CHR
… download chr.ova (25MBit/s-VDSL) … 8sec
… enroll ova … < 1min
… configure the Server- and Client-VM … 2min ( … and yes … the windows/hyperterminal-solution needs that part too 
)
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\\.\pipe\VCom1
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… then … disable RB-console and start a serial-session … 10 sec
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