How To Add a Virtual Serial Port to a Virtual Machine

You can add up to four serial (COM) ports to a virtual machine. Virtual serial ports can output to physical serial ports, files, or named pipes.

You might want to add a virtual serial port to a virtual machine to make devices such as modems and printers available to the virtual machine. You can also use virtual ports to send debugging data from a virtual machine to the host system or to another virtual machine.

NOTE: The virtual printer feature configures a serial port to make host printers available to the guest. You do not need to install additional drivers in the virtual machine.

Prerequisites 

- Power off the virtual machine.

Procedure

1. Select the virtual machine and select VM > Settings.

2. On the Hardware tab, click Add.

3. In the Add Hardware wizard, select Serial Port.

4. Select where the virtual serial parallel port sends output.

Option	Description
Use a physical parallel port	Send output to a physical serial port on the host system.
Use output file	Send output to a file on the host system. Either locate an existing output file or browse to a directory and type a filename to create a new output file.
Output to named pipe	Set up a direct connection between two virtual machines, or a connection between a virtual machine and an application on the host system.

5. If you selected Output to named pipe, configure the named pipe.
    a) (Windows host) Use the default pipe name, or type another pipe name.
        The pipe name must begin with \\.\pipe\ and must be the same on both the server and the client. For example: \\.\pipe\namedpipe
    b)  (Linux host) Type /tmp/socket or another UNIX socket name in the first text box.
        The pipe name must be the same on both the server and the client.
   c)  To send debugging information to an application on the host system, select This end is the server from the first drop-down menu and select The other end is an application from the second dropdown menu.
   d) To send debugging information to another virtual machine, select This end is the server from the first drop-down menu and The other end is a virtual machine from the second drop-down menu.

6. To connect the port to the virtual machine when the virtual machine powers on, select Connect at power on.

7. Click Finish to add the virtual serial port to the virtual machine.

You Should Also Read: Change the Input Speed of a Serial Connection in VMware Workstation