COM port in Virtual Machine

Olga Weis Dec 23, 2019

Common problem:

Sometimes it happens that in the virtual environment we cannot work with serial ports, because virtualization software tools normally do not support their capacity. So what do we do if we need access to a serial device in a virtual machine - a modem, a scanner or a printer? Serial ports are also required when debugging applications.

If you or any application of the virtual machine you are working on has to access a serial port on a host operating system, try one of the following solutions.

Emulate Serial Port with Serial to Ethernet Connector

This third-party software is one of the easiest ways to connect to a serial port on a computer running Linux or Windows. The software will create a client connection by initiating data redirection from a serial port – local or real – to a remote server via TCP/IP protocol. The remote side does not need to have Virtual Serial Over Ethernet installed. You only need to specify the IP address or the network name of the remote server and the TCP port to which you want to connect. The client connection means that the data sent from the remote end will be received by a local serial port and processed.

To start working with a COM port, download and install the application, will display a list of available devices for you, find the one you need and connect to it.

Serial to Ethernet Connector allows access to serial port in Hyper-V, VMWare, Citrix XenDesktop and other virtualization software.

Access Serial Port in Hyper-V

Hyper-V Manager never shows COM, so does not even know if have or no. To be able to work with serial ports is necessary to connect to the virtual machine, once the connection is established follow these steps:

In the lower left corner of the application click on the button "Show Options".
Go to the "Local Resources" tab
Next to the "Devices and Local Resources" tab, click "More"
Click on the "Ports" tab
Log in the virtual machine on the tab "General".

The resources on the host computer must be visible to you in the virtual environment.

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Serial to Ethernet Connector is a great way to access COM port in Hyper-V. Just download the app to both host and guest OS and freely work with serial ports.

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Work with Serial Ports in VirtualBox

To access a serial port in Virtual Box, you need to perform a couple of actions in the host virtual machine. No need to do anything in the host operating system.

Here is what you need to do in the virtual environment – set up the serial port:

Click on the "Serial port" tab and enter the Port/File path.
Start your machine by checking the "Create Connection" box, if you do not check "Create Connection", an error message appears.
Now you can start your second machine.

Video Tutorial

Work with COM Ports in VMware

To work with a serial port in VMware this is what to do:

In the virtual machine go to "Settings";
In the "Hardware" tab click on "Add";
Follow the installation wizard and select a serial port;
Specify if the serial port needs to send an output - if it is a named connection, be sure to configure it;
"Connect to the Start" allows you to connect to the port when you start the virtual machine;
Click on "Finish" to add the remote serial port to the virtual machine.

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Information

Requirements

Requirements: Windows (32-bit and 64-bit): 2008 R2 SP1/7 SP1/8/10/11; Windows Server 2012/2016/2019/2022; Windows 10/11 on ARM

Latest version

Latest version: v9.0.1253, Released 12 Apr, 2023 Release notes