I have been testing the HTML5 webclient and if you want to do the same you have to follow a few procedures. Deploy a new VM from an ova [download] which will use 2 vCPUs and 4 GB or RAM. Indeed, you need to deploy a new VM which will talk to vCenter server. There is no vCenter deployment which comes with an embedded HTML5 client yet. The procedures on how to deploy the HTML5 webclient are well explained in the HTML5 webclient documentation and don’t take too long. The only thing you really need is a vSphere 6 deployment!
Some remarks about the HTML 5 client:
- It is fast. There is no doubt that it is a lot faster than the current webclient.
- There are still a lot of features missing compared to the current webclient and vSphere client.
- One thing that I really miss is the ability to acknowledge statuses and mark em to green for a batch of statuses. One by one is a pain.
Here is a short procedure in case you are running the vCenter server appliance:
Deploy the OVA using OVFTool or vSphere Web Client or ESXi Host Client and power on the VM (Desktop client may work as well).
A. SSH into vCenter server and do the following:
1. Run the following command to enable the Bash shell: shell.set --enable True 2. Run the following command to access the Bash shell: shell 3. In the shell, run the following command to change the default shell: /usr/bin/chsh -s "/bin/bash" root 4. check the date by typing date
B. Open the console of the HTML5 VM and do the following:
1. SSH as root into the H5 client appliance VM (Note: password is demova)
2. IF YOUR VC IS OPERATING BEHIND DNS, you will need to do the following steps
a) Add your dns server to /etc/resolv.conf
b) restart networking: service network restart
3. Register the appliance against your VC server (the command can take a few minutes to complete): /etc/init.d/vsphere-client configure --start yes --user root --vc <IP_Address_Of_vCenter> (type the whole string!)
If you want to set a separate NTP server - /etc/init.d/vsphere-client configure --start yes --user root --vc <IP_Address_Of_vCenter> --ntp <your_NTP_server> (type the whole string!)
4. check the date by typing date and make sure the date matches the date of your vCenter server.
Connect to the webinterface of your HTML5 VM:
https://<H5_Appliance_IP_Address>:9443/ui or https://<H5_Appliance_IP_Address>:9443/vsphere-client
So how does it perform compared with the flash-based webclient?
Well it is way faster than the flash-based webclient so that is a big plus. It has been a huge concern for most of us.
Unfortunately it does look different yet again so it does take some time getting used to it. Also VMware will have to make sure more features will be available and that third-party integration will work smoothly!
I am looking forward to find out where this will lead to. Fingers crossed!
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