Saturday, July 9, 2011

Fixing Multiple Characters Typed in a vSphere Console on a Linux Guest

You know the problem .. you're in the vSphere client, you've got a console open on a linux guest, and sometimes when you type a character, you get multiples of it typed in the console.  Yeah, try logging in like that.

Briefly, the problem is that it thinks you're holding down the keys (lag adds time between key-down and key-up events) so it repeats the letter you're "holding down."  You can disable key repeating for this guest's console by changing how long a key must be down before it's repeated.  There's a handy post that explains editing the .vmx file .. but I prefer to do it in the vSphere client:

  • Pop into the vSphere client and "Shut Down Guest"  (I know, sorry.)
  • Click to "Edit Settings"
  • Select the "Options" tab.
  • In the list, under "Advanced," click "General"
  • Over on the right, click the "Configuration Parameters..." button.
  • Click the "Add Row" button.
  • Make the new variable's name "keyboard.typematicMinDelay" and the value "2000000"
  • Boot it back up.

Now you can login as "root," instead of "rrrroooooott."

4 comments:

  1. Thanks, it helps!

    I translate it to Russian with back link
    http://michael-xiii.blogspot.com/2011/12/vmware-vsphere-console-linux-guest.html

    Best wishes and Happy New Year!

    ReplyDelete
  2. negative. still a problem. Thanks anyway. *sigh*

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sir, you are a God sent! :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. yes, he is God sent, it work for me!

    ReplyDelete