I need to become a VMware Lab Manager expert and so it begins. From what I’ve seen so far, Lab Manager 3.x has made great progress since I last kicked the tires 15 months ago on Lab Manager 2.x. The biggest news by far is that ESX hosts can be managed both by Lab Manager Server and vCenter Server with all the fixins (DRS, HA, VMotion). Although I’ve already found that VMs connected to an internal only vSwitch remain pinned to the host due to VMotion rules.
Nothing too Earth shattering here; this information comes straight from page 20 of the Lab Manager Installation and Upgrade Guide.
| Systems | TCP Port | UDP Port |
| Client browser to access Lab Manager Server system | 443 | |
| Client browser to access ESX hosts | 902, 903 | |
| Lab Manager Server system and ESX hosts to access SMB share
(import and export operations only) |
139, 445 | 137, 138 |
| ESX hosts to access NFS media datastores or NFS virtual machine datastores | 2049 | |
| Lab Manager Server system to access Lab Manager agent on ESX hosts | 5212 | |
| Lab Manager Server system to access ESX host agent on ESX hosts | 443 | |
| Lab Manager Server system to access the VirtualCenter Server system | 443 | |
| Lab Manager Server system to communicate with virtual router on some ESX hosts
(for fenced configurations) |
514 | |
| Lab Manager Server system to access LDAP Server | 389 LDAP
636 LDAPS |
Before the installation of Lab Manager, be sure that ports above won’t conflict with an existing configuration by running the netstat -b command from the Windows command line.
If you are debating having a user access this from an outside client machine, you may run into many issues. The Lab Manager server is not a connection broker for the consoles that are displayed in the active X component. This product is really designed to be used internally or to have a client VPN in and then launch a browser.