Our corporate firewall likes to close connections a bit quickly (1-2 min of "idle"), which Azure Serial Console doesn't detect (so you have to navigate away and then back to the console). Would be nice to have browser send some sort of keep-alive to prevent overzealous firewalls in-between from doing so.

The way the console session loads in browser, means that the URL is not correctly formatted:

Website Link: http://aka.ms/windowsserialconsol

Should be: http://aka.ms/windowsserialconsole

Hi,

The Virtual machine serial console (preview) is a great new feature, but does it still require and connect over IP?

How exactly does this feature work if you have no IP access?

Many thanks.

The default TERM is vt220. After vi command the windows size will be changed.

I used the w.a as below
TERM=xterm
tput reset

Any concern regarding to this?

I've seen that the VM Contributor Role is required for access but can you tell me the specific permission required if I want to create a Custom Role?

It seems that the serial console loads after the kernel , it would be nice if we could implement a way to have control over grub to select a previous kernel or even change kernel command lines at boot time.

Not sure if that is indeed being implemented that way, where it loads up only if the kernel loads successfully , there are some changes that should be able to give us that scenario, depending how we are implementing it.

A few possible ways to implemente it:
https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/7/html/system_administrators_guide/sec-grub_2_over_a_serial_console

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SerialConsoleHowto

This could be really helpful in situations of failed to boot after a kernel upgrade as well as kernel crashes during boot.

The number of rows and columns in the serial console appears to be automatically selected when the Serial Console blade is opened. Resizing the browser window doesn't change the console dimensions. It is necessary to close and reopen the blade to do this. My feature request would be to make the console dimensions configurable per VM. Keep those dimensions as the browser window is resized. Add scroll bars to the blade if the window is too small for the configured screen dimensions. Add a buffer for lines that have scrolled off the top. Make the buffer downloadable.

Thanks for developing this. I look forward one day to being able to use a GUI application like the Hyper-V Virtual Machine Connection application to access both Windows and Linux VM consoles.

I would like to suggest adding more fonts and the ability to change font sizes.

Both of the current fonts use old-fashioned wide fonts that are difficult to read. I suggest the use of a font dialog box to select a font or hard-code common fonts "Consolas" and "Lucida Console."

We should add:

• which versions of Windows are expected to work (e.g. all Azure support versions of Server)
• the fact that SAC should be enabled proactively since we will get into chicken->egg scenarios if there is a boot or RDP issue

Currently, I get the following message on the serial console when the VM provisioning is not yet succeeded.

Access to the Azure Serial Console is in preview. For more information see https://aka.ms/serialconsolehelp.
Connecting to console of vm1 ■ □ □
The serial console connection to the VM encountered an error: 'Bad Request'
(400) - Provisioning for this VM has not yet succeeded. Please ensure the VM is fully deployed and retry the serial console connection.

The problem is, even after the provisioning is successful, the message remains there on the serial console page and the only way to get to the console is, to reload the page.

It would be nice to connect automatically to the VM serial console after successful provisioning.

Last week, we were able to use the Serial Console access to VMs. Today, 6/18 we continue to get: The serial console connection to the VM encountered an error: 'Forbidden' (403) - Forbidden. Is this a new issue that resurfaced? -Mark

Security Issue

I and sorry for my Funny English.
When I connect in my Azure VM (portal azure) , I use my First profile.
For exemple, [email protected]
Then I start Console Serie and I connect with the admin profile of the VM.
I disconnected My [email protected] profile in IE, I closed my browser and I run a new profile [email protected].
If I go to Serial Console, I do not need to reconnect. The admin profile and password is always used and I have the admin rigths with another profile.
I think it's dangerous ;)

Regards
Thierry

Serial Console feature is a charm when comes to triaging/debugging the production issues as well as during development cycles.

An enhancement would be to make this feature available via Azure CLI so we don't have to log in to the portal to connect to the console.

I've tried hitting enter multiple times and it just never shows the login prompt. I've tried in different browsers to see if that makes a difference but I get nothing.

When attempting to access either an Ubuntu Linux VM or Windows Server 2016 VM (after enabling SAC), I receive the following error: "The serial console connection to the VM encountered an error: 'Forbidden' (403) - You do not have the required permissions to use this VM serial console"

My user has 'Owner' permissions on the VMs inherited from the subscription. VMs are in the West Central US region.

Launch azure serial console for RHEL 7.6 VM, pending 10 mins still in initial status ( ref browser Google Chrome )

When opening the serial console, it dumps a certificate to the console and doesn't allow connections. Pressing enter does nothing, clicking out of the serial console and back has the same behavior.

Refreshing the browser brings back the console.

Hi, I have two OEL 7.4 vms that serial console works fine and I was able to rescue them, one other only shows azure vm health report information over and over again, no console messages are being showed. any ideas how to get the serial console working so I can fix my networking?

Hi,

I have no issue with linux access, but when I tried with Windows, I can see the console displayed, there are some output, but no login prompt and no input is taken (I type, but nothing happens).

I can only see the message : ============= Microsoft Azure Heakth report.... ============

The VM is up, in West Europe, the diagnostic is enable (because apparently it is required) and I am owner of the subscription (which was enough for the console for Linux VM).

Currently, if I hit "Enter" key on a timed out serial console (due to inactivity), I get the message below and I have to hit 'Enter" again to reconnect. It would be nice to establish the connection with the first key press.

The serial console encountered the following web socket error communicating with the VM: 'error: Web socket is closed or could not be opened.'. Plese validate your network connection and retry the attempt. For more information see https://aka.ms/serialconsolehelp

The serial console connection was closed. This can occur if there was an error or another user connected to the console of this virtual machine. To reconnect, press "Enter".

I see there is a command line for Windows but not full RDP-style access to the console GUI on Windows. Also, we need the ability to mount ISOs and to boot off them in Windows. When would those features be added?

I found really difficult to accomplish some tasks without having access to more than what just fits on the screen,

I've been trying it with windows CMD and PowerShell sessions.

One can use alternatives like ls | more but really slows things.

BTW keep going that way!!!

The short link showing in the output above (http://aka.ms/windowsserialconsole) is pointing to the GitHub view of the page and not the docs view.

It should be pointing to this URL: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/serial-console#accessing-serial-console-for-windows

I am getting an error with the ExtHandler an on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS NC6 VM with the Azure Deep Learning VM image from the marketplace.

2018/11/21 23:30:04.112912 ERROR ExtHandler Command: [pidof systemd-networkd], return code: [1], result: []
2018/11/21 23:30:09.128892 ERROR ExtHandler Command: [pidof systemd-networkd], return code: [1], result: []
2018/11/21 23:30:14.144576 ERROR ExtHandler Command: [pidof systemd-networkd], return code: [1], result: []
2018/11/21 23:30:19.160232 ERROR ExtHandler Command: [pidof systemd-networkd], return code: [1], result: []
2018/11/21 23:30:24.175976 ERROR ExtHandler Command: [pidof systemd-networkd], return code: [1], result: []
2018/11/21 23:30:29.191714 ERROR ExtHandler Command: [pidof systemd-networkd], return code: [1], result: []
2018/11/21 23:30:34.210157 ERROR ExtHandler Command: [pidof systemd-networkd], return code: [1], result: []

Hej,

I resized my VM from Standard "Standard D2s v3" to "Standard H16r" but the serial console did not show the boot process of the new VM. Instead, it just sits there and shows the output from the shutdown process of the old system.

I did run "shutdown -h now", then stopped the VM via the Azure web interface, after it was deallocated, I changed the size and started the VM via the Azure web interface.

I tried to reload the website and reconnect with the serial console, but it still only showd the shutdown procedure of the previous VM size. Even a stop and start of the VM with the new size does not show the expected output.

[ OK ] Unmounted /boot.
[ OK ] Reached target Unmount All Filesystems.
[ OK ] Stopped target Local File Systems (Pre).
[ OK ] Stopped Remount Root and Kernel File Systems.
Stopping Remount Root and Kernel File Systems...
[ OK ] Stopped Create Static Device Nodes in /dev.
Stopping Create Static Device Nodes in /dev...
[ OK ] Reached target Shutdown.
[24622.367078] systemd-shutdown[1]: Sending SIGTERM to remaining processes...
[24622.403794] systemd-journald[361]: Received SIGTERM from PID 1 (systemd-shutdow).
[24622.434385] systemd-shutdown[1]: Sending SIGKILL to remaining processes...
[24622.461773] systemd-shutdown[1]: Unmounting file systems.
[24622.479644] systemd-shutdown[1]: Remounting '/' read-only with options 'seclabel,attr2,inode64,noquota'.
[24622.581664] systemd-shutdown[1]: Remounting '/' read-only with options 'seclabel,attr2,inode64,noquota'.
[24622.614420] systemd-shutdown[1]: All filesystems unmounted.
[24622.635248] systemd-shutdown[1]: Deactivating swaps.
[24622.652100] systemd-shutdown[1]: All swaps deactivated.
[24622.669572] systemd-shutdown[1]: Detaching loop devices.
[24622.687881] systemd-shutdown[1]: All loop devices detached.
[24622.706159] systemd-shutdown[1]: Detaching DM devices.
[24622.723604] systemd-shutdown[1]: All DM devices detached.
[24622.755560] systemd-shutdown[1]: Powering off.
[24622.771238] kvm: exiting hardware virtualization
[24622.787308] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Synchronizing SCSI cache
[24622.806265] ACPI: Preparing to enter system sleep state S5
[24622.825813] Power down.

The above is the sutdown procedure of the "Standard D2s v3" and is it shown regardless how often I restart the VM with the new size.

Cheers,
Bjoern

For custom Linux images, what is the kernel config to enable serial console?
What is the minimum requirement?

Seeing attached message for a windows 2016 OS machine. SAC has been enabled for this virtual machine and rebooted. After a while I see SAC prompt but unable to input anything.
Virtual Machine itself is in healthy state. I am just trying to learn serial console and utilizing this healthy machine for it.

Serial console is not working after customer enabled storage account firewall. The issue can be reproduced. Serial console or Storage Account firewall Azure document do not mention about this limitation.

Is it by design that storage account firewall is not supported by serial console? Is there any plan for this to be ready in future

When launching SAC for a Windows server, launching CMD, then launching PowerShell within that CMD, the backspace key behaves oddly. Instead of doing one character at time, it does "words" at a time as if you're holding down the ctrl key. For example, if you have "Get-NetIPConfiguration" entered, pressing backspace one time will change that to "Get-". I've tried relaunching the session a few times, and this seems to be consistent.

A lot of our customers deploy VM's using SSH keys, which is the recommended, more secure way of deploying Linux workloads.

It would be really great to have a way to login in the serial console with an SSH key since every time you deploy a VM using that method, password authentication is disabled.

Not sure about how we could implement that, some cloud solutions have ways for you to add and manage SSH keys on their portals.

Hello,

I have enabled azure serial console on a windows 10 VM and I can not use it after press enter i getting a blank console !

Thanks,
Yousef

I'm using the Azure Serial Console to create a new AD Domain with PowerShell. So basically, I've opened up a CMD session and in that CMD session, I've opened a PowerShell session.

When I copy the following command into the console:
Install-windowsfeature AD-domain-services

It actually adds an extra "l" to the cmdlet, like:
Installl-windowsfeature AD-domain-services

I'm using Chrome (Version 65.0.3325.181 (Official Build) (64-bit)) with the paste functionality of Chrome. Paste as plain-text does not make any difference.

Let me know if you need more info. Happy to help!

When having the serial console blade open, clicking the "X" to close causes the entire VM blade to close and I am returned to the dashboard. Seen in Chrome and Edge.

When I configure the serial console, I found in the bootdiagnostics storage account there are a lot of 404 requests.

bootdiagnostics-serialtes-84bff47e-e7d6-46d3-9992-62ff369c267fGetBlobProperties
404

SASClientOtherError BlobNotFound

https://westeuconsole.blob.core.windows.net/bootdiagnostics-serialtes-84bff47e-e7d6-46d3-9992-62ff369c267f/serial-test.84bff47e-e7d6-46d3-9992-62ff369c267f.serialconsole-connectionmetadata?api-version=2016-05-31&se=9999-01-01T00%3A00%3A00Z&sig=XXXXX&sk=system-1&sp=rwd&sr=c&sv=2017-04-17

but I couldnt find this serial-test.84bff47e-e7d6-46d3-9992-62ff369c267f.serialconsole-connectionmetadata in my storage account.

there are no files which end with connectionmetadata all files end with .log or .bmp.

When they query for .log or .bmp files the request is success.

======

may I know what this connectionmetadata used for and how to prevent the 404 happened?

Ability to have standard console font selection options - ie. Lucinda, Fixed, etc.

Once GA, it would be great to have the link icon for this feature available on the top of the VM blade like "Connect" is.

If I have to perform any operation on a disk that means detaching the disk from the VM and attaching it back, or swapping the OS disk with another OS disk, the console will fail to connect to the VM.
Right now all this ( disk swap, disk attached to another VM, rebuild Vm from fixed OS Disk, etc) are kind of standard procedures in Azure Linux troubleshooting, and I know the serial console tries to replace all those tedious procedures. However, in case a customer builds a VM from a custom image, it will have exactly the same problem.

Is is possible to connect debugger somehow? Do you have any plans for that?

Thanks

There should be a Powershell version for this. The console itself should be PowerShell-based like the PowerShell Cloud Shell. It also should enable me to manage the Linux VM's thru PowerShell Core and set the Powershelll ISE context to the serial console like [this] (https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/powershell/2017/10/19/navigate-azure-resources-just-like-a-file-system/) or have a way to get to the 'Serial Context' thru VSC.
#6310

Resulting error is pretty self-explanatory. The listKeys operation fails for the boot diagnostic account:

Connecting to console of ubuntu1604 □ □ ■
The serial console connection to the VM encountered an error: 'Conflict' (409) - Conflict: The scope '/subscriptions/<subId>/resourceGroups/<RG>/ providers/Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/<storageAccount>' cannot perform write operation because following scope(s) are locked: '/subscriptions/<subId>/resourceGroups/<RG>/'. Please remove the lock and try again. [ScopeLocked]

Traditional boot diagnostics appears to suffer from this as well.

Current workarounds include:

• temporarily remove the lock
• change the boot diagnostic account to a different (unlocked) storage account

Since root is a no password account by default, this can be quite problematic.

After following the doc on Serial Console(https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/linux/serial-console#accessing-serial-console-for-linux), I still can see only the white page and anything else.
Please find the screenshot below:

• SAC is enabled
• I have tried to explicitly add owner/contributor role to the VM
  Issue still persists
  Is this a bug?

VM is Windows 2016 deployed in East Asia with size D1v2

It is great to have a serial console, this option allowed me to recover a with Red Hat server with selinux issues.

The only problem I encountered, is to halt the startup to enter the grub boot menu.
If you have the option to restart the VM you are fine.
0) Option serial console

1. Restart VM
2. Go back to the Serial console. when connection breaks “enter button” and then keep on tapping the space bar.

I had only the option, to start the VM and this did not give me the time needed to halt the startup and enter the Grub menu, the time I got a serial console screen the server is already past the grub menu.
Workaround.
0) Startup the VM server

1. Open a serial console menu

2. Use Powershell to initiate reboot from the VM server.
   Restart-AzureRmVM -Name “name” -ResourceGroupName “resourcegroup”

3. Go back to the Serial console. when the connection breaks “enter button” and then keep on tapping the space bar.

A nice feature to have stop start and reboot option in the serial console menu, and have automatic reconnect back to the serial console.

Issue Example 1: I've noticed that if I'm pasting a long string into the Serial Console that it doesn't accept all the characters or seems to reset the placement of the cursor during paste.

Issue Example 2: In VI or NANO pasting copied text has not worked as expected yet.

On Mac OSX Sierra in Chrome Browser with all available updates on each.

Hi, I have 3 OEL 7.4 vms that serial console works fine and I was able to rescue them, but this one says:

Sorry, the serial console was unable to connect to the VM because the service did not respond in a timely manner. Please retry your connection. If this issue persists please visit <https://aka.ms/seria
lconsolehelp>.
To reconnect, press "Enter".

any ideas? I tried shutting down, restarting and redeploy once already.

I create VM as user that is Owner for whole subscription. When trying to access console I get Forbidded error.

The serial console connection to the VM encountered an error: 'Forbidden'
(403) - You do not have the required permissions to use this VM serial console. Please ensure you have at least VM Contributor role permissio
ns. For more information see https://aka.ms/serialconsolehelp.

I add myself in IAM as Virtual Machine Contributor.

Now I can access serial console.

What behavior I expected:
Since Owner is highest level role already I assumed it inherently get access to serial.

Attempting to boot into recovery mode is a lot more difficult without the normal splash screen edit facility on the Linux image string.

Hey All - I have a private environment that have forced tunneling enabled. I can't see why this could be an issue, but I can't connect to the serial (hit enter does nothing). Yet, when I test console on a non-forced tunneling environment, it works.

Hi

It will be a great help to have the VM main Toolbar on top of the Serial Console frame
So it will allow to Stop / Start / Connect / Restart without disconnecting the Serial console.

Thanks,
Noam