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Accessing VMs
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virtual machine. A linked clone is also a copy of an existing virtual machine, but it has ongoing
dependency on the original. A linked clone shares the virtual disk of the original VM, and retains
access to all files that were present at the time the clone was created.
The use of these different clone types involves some side effects and tradeoffs, so it is to the
administrator's advantage to be able to choose which of the two types will be used in a CloudPlatform
deployment.
A new global configuration setting has been added, vmware.create.full.clone. When the administrator
sets this to true, end users can create guest VMs only as full clones. The default value is true for fresh
installations of CloudPlatform. For customers upgrading from CloudPlatform 2.x or 3.x, the default
value of vmware.create.full.clone is false.
It is not recommended to change the value of vmware.create.full.clone in a cloud with running VMs.
However, if the value is changed, existing VMs are not affected. Only VMs created after the setting is
put into effect are subject to the restriction.
11.5. Accessing VMs
Any user can access their own virtual machines. The administrator can access all VMs running in the
cloud.
To access a VM through the CloudPlatform UI:
1. Log in to the CloudPlatform UI as a user or admin.
2. Click Instances, then click the name of a running VM.
3.
Click the View Console
To access a VM directly over the network:
1. The VM must have some port open to incoming traffic. For example, in a basic zone, a new
VM might be assigned to a security group which allows incoming traffic. This depends on what
security group you picked when creating the VM. In other cases, you can open a port by setting up
a port forwarding policy. See IP Forwarding and Firewalling.
2. If a port is open but you can not access the VM using ssh, it’s possible that ssh is not already
enabled on the VM. This will depend on whether ssh is enabled in the template you picked when
creating the VM. Access the VM through the CloudPlatform UI and enable ssh on the machine
using the commands for the VM’s operating system.
3. If the network has an external firewall device, you will need to create a firewall rule to allow
access. See IP Forwarding and Firewalling.
11.6. Appending a Display Name to the Guest VM’s Internal
Name
Every guest VM has an internal name. The host uses the internal name to identify the guest VMs.
CloudPlatform gives you an option to provide a guest VM with a display name. You can add this
display name to the internal name so that it is displayed in contexts where the internal name is shown,
such as in vCenter. This feature is intended to make the correlation between instance names and
internal names easier in large data center deployments.
To append display names to VM internal names, set the global configuration parameter
vm.instancename.flag to true. The default value of this parameter is false.