Connect two virtual machines within Vmware with serial line

Hey,
I recently triggered a problem in Vmware (version 1.0.3, Linux), that it is not possible to use the given "Virtual Machine Settings" -> "Use named pipe" -> "The other end is a virtual machine" feature. There was no serial communication between my two OpenSUSE 10.3 test machines. To workaround this I used the socat tool. With socat unix-connect:./pipe unix-connect:/mnt/vmware-machines/Virtual\ Machines/SUSE\ Linux/pipe it was possible to get the serial communication working. Although Vmware says that it creates a pipe, it is represented as a unix socket. Before setting up the socat proxy, you should configure the serial ports in the virtual machines. Doing this via "Virtual Machine Settings" (right-click in the right bottom of the Window) -> "Use named pipe" -> Enter a name for the named pipe, configure "This end is the server" and important the last option, configure "The other end is an application". After setting this for me a reboot is needed. After reboot your choosen filename is created and available for socat connect.

A nice step for debugging, is "socat unix-connect:./pipe stdout".

Some hint from me, if you see a flooding on the serial line, you probably have enabled the shell with login prompt on both serial lines, so the are trying to login each other :-) .