vSphere HTML5 Web Client arrives as a VMware Fling, a glimpse at vSphere's future UI

Posted by Paul Braren on Mar 29 2016 (updated on Apr 1 2016) in
  • ESXi
  • Virtualization
  • HomeLab

    • You may recall my rejoicing over the arrival of the responsive and snappy HTML5 UI, see:

    Even better, that ESXi Embedded Host Client is now baked right into ESXi 6.0U2, which happens to be a super quick and easy upgrade from any 6.x version, see:

    Now, at last, we have a glimpse at that path forward we've been hoping for for years, a way to liberate ourselves from the sluggish vSphere Web Client that never achieved the snappy performance of the vSphere Client we've been used to for a decade, remember:

    The clear path forward is called vSphere HTML5 Web Client.

    Download

    vSphere-HTML5-Web-Client-FLING

    available at the VMware FLINGS site:

    As far as step-by-step download and install procedures for this appliance, VMware provides a pdf, note that the reliance on the command line seen is only temporary, in this initial release:

    This article with screenshots looks spot-on to get you going fast:

    Closing thoughts...

    This initial release is not feature complete. Also note that my own testing is by no means complete, I'm just not able to work on this currently. But I sure do look forward to it! I seriously doubt anybody will be missing Adobe Flash, along with clumsy Windows-only browser extensions and Chrome's NPAPI restrictions. This combination of Javascript and HTML5 should hopefully prove to be a much better long-term architecture choice.

    To run the vSphere HTML5 Web Client VM, you will want a beefy home server with lots of RAM and many cores, since the System Requirements are a bit on the high side:

    System_Requirements

    Keep in mind you still also need your VCSA, that really wants 8GB to itself, although small labs can get away with 6GB.

    twitter-about-vsphere-html5-web-client

    Apr 01 2016 Update

    I did get this vSphere HTML5 client installed, preparing for my live homelab demonstration to hundreds.

    2016-04-01_22-25-12
    I got vSphere HTML5 Web Client working, temporarily.

    I'm glad I did a snapshot of VCSA before I got started with testing this beta of this HTML5 (aka H5) client. Why? Because after a reboot, the VCSA appliance itself wouldn't come up cleanly. Got this error when trying to log in:

    `503 Service Unavailable (Failed to connect to endpoint: [N7Vmacore4Http16LocalServiceSpecE:0x7f1f4405d330] _serverNamespace = /vsphere-client _isRedirect = false _port = 9090)`

    Just for giggles, with VCSA in this broken state, I tried to login to the vSphere HTML5 Web Client, only to see this error:

    `HTTP Status 400 - An error occurred while sending an authentication request to the vCenter Single Sign-On server - An error occurred when processing the metadata during vCenter Single Sign-On setup - Cannot connect to the VMware Component Manager https://vcenter/cm/sdk/.`

`type Status report`

`message An error occurred while sending an authentication request to the vCenter Single Sign-On server - An error occurred when processing the metadata during vCenter Single Sign-On setup - Cannot connect to the VMware Component Manager https://vcenter/cm/sdk/.`

`description The request sent by the client was syntactically incorrect.`

`Apache Tomcat/7.0.53`

    Once I reverted to the last snapshot of VCSA, an operation that took all of 5 seconds on SSD, I was able to reconnect the H5 appliance with the VCSA again, immediately. I then reconnected H5 client to VCSA. Sucess!

    But of course, it failed again, after the next reboot of VCSA. Same exact error. I'll need to see if this has something to do with DNS, and/or manual edits of the /etc/host files.

    See also

    See also

    TinkerTry - PCs, EVs, home tech, efficiency and more, including virtualization. My opinions here, not my employer's.

    Paul Braren, MCSE in 1998, VCP #2681 in 2005, vExpert 2014 to 2024, Veeam Vanguard Emeritus, 2015 to 2019.

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