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VMware ESX Server provides the VMware Management Interface, a Web-based management tool that allows you to

• Monitor the state of virtual machines and the VMware ESX Server machine on which they are running.
• Control (power on, suspend, resume, reset and power off) the virtual machines on the server.
• Connect the VMware Remote Console to a given virtual machine, for hands-on management.
• Modify virtual machine configurations.
• Manage users and groups.
• Configure SANs.
• Create and delete virtual machines.
• Answer questions and acknowledge messages posed by the virtual machine.
• Configure ESX Server (root users only).

You should use the VMware Management Interface from a management workstation, not from the server machine where ESX Server is installed. Running the X Windows System on your server's service console is not recommended.

To use the management interface, make sure you set read permissions for all users for each virtual machine you want to manage from a browser when you register each virtual machine.

Note: If you are connecting to the management interface with Internet Explorer 6.0, you must configure the browser. See Configuring Internet Explorer 6.0 to Use the VMware Management Interface.

Note: You can only use ASCII characters when viewing the management interface.

Once your user name and password are authorized by the management interface, the Status Monitor page appears. The Status Monitor page contains high level details about all the virtual machines on the server to which you are connected. The Status Monitor page links to a detailed set of pages specific to each virtual machine, where you find information about virtual devices, configuration options and a summary of recent events. In addition, you can create and delete virtual machines from your browser.

These pages refresh or reload automatically, refreshing every 90 seconds. You may want to refresh or reload these pages manually before you perform an operation like suspending, resuming, or powering on or off a virtual machine from the management interface — or after you perform a power operation in a remote console — in case another user has performed the same or a conflicting operation right before you. To refresh the page, click Refresh at the top of a page.

Note: Your management interface sessions times out after a 60 minute period of idle time.

This setting is represented by the variable vmware_SESSION_LENGTH, stored in /home/vmware/mui/apache/conf/access.conf. You can block access to the management interface for all users by setting vmware_SESSION_LENGTH to 0 minutes. On the other hand, you can allow for persistent sessions that never time out by setting vmware_SESSION_LENGTH to -1.