Once you've created a virtual machine you should connect to it to check its operation and perform initial setup. You can make three kinds of connections to a virtual machine:

1. a connection served by the virtual machine itself (SSH for Linux, or Remote Desktop for Windows);
2. a graphical console connection, so you can see what is on the video display; or
3. a serial console connection.

Connection to the virtual machine itself

If you've used one of our images to set up your virtual machine, you should be able to connect via SSH to your system's IP address, e.g.

ssh root@web1.default.snowbother.uk0.bigv.io

This is exactly like any other dedicated server. If you don't know your virtual machine's IP address, you can find it out through the vm show command, or it will have a predictable name

However "vm connect" allows you to connect to your VM's two consoles, graphical or serial.

Graphical console connection

You can connect to your VM's video console by typing, e.g.

$ bigv vm connect web1

(assuming that 'web1' is the name of the machine to which you want to connect). That should bring up the video display for your host; in this example it has just booted up:

You should be able to type and move the mouse at the console, but this access method is inherently rather inefficient and limiting. You might find you need to reconnect if you change the video display size, for instance, and the pointer follows the mouse at the wrong speed.

This access method is intended for use only when you have misconfigured a network interface, firewall and so on. We would recommend using a direct connection where possible.

Serial console connection

If your OS supports it, you should be able to connect to its serial console in text mode. You can connect to the serial console by typing:

$ bigv vm connect web1 --serial

If you don't see anything, press enter a couple of times, and on a normal Linux system, you'd expect to see a login prompt:

Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 web1.default.snowbother.uk0.bigv.io ttyS0

web1.default.snowbother.uk0.bigv.io login: 
Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 web1.default.snowbother.uk0.bigv.io ttyS0

web1.default.snowbother.uk0.bigv.io login: 

As with the graphical console, you may find this a bit limiting, as it will typically only support a fixed-size terminal. However, compared to the graphical console, it should be faster to respond and use less bandwidth.

Windows users would see the Serial Access Console instead (link to our brief guide on it).

To close the serial console, you would typically type three characters in quick succession:

• ENTER
• ~ (tilde)
• . (full-stop / period)