how to access vmware virtual infrastructure web access

After I had installed vmware server 2 on an ubuntu linux server running remotely, I followed the instruction to access the vmware console from a web browser by going to this url from the Internet, remotely:

http://the-remote-server.nerd:8222

The page then redirected me to another https url on port 8333.  Then, I always got requested timeout.  It also seemed like it was reloading the page forever.  I really had no idea what was going on.  I did a 4 hours research on google.  I found many people experienced the same issue.  But, unfortunately, there was no single resolution.  (Some said that I needed to use another linux distro instead of ubuntu.)

For some unknown reason, I had come up with an idea to try to access that url locally.  *locally* with a server which is located far far away from me? ... With the great ssh client from OpenSSH suite, we can easily create a SOCKS proxy server and configure Firefox which can act as a SOCKS client so that it will use this SOCKS proxy server as a connection.  This is a sample command I use to create it:

% ssh -D localhost:5555 unsigned_nerd@the-remote-server.nerd

Then in Firefox, I configure it to use connection from SOCKS host: localhost port: 5555.  After that any websites I browse in Firefox are proxied through the-remote-server.nerd.  Therefore, when I browse http://localhost:8222, I can get to the vmware virtual infrastructure web access.  It's a big surprise that ... everything works smoothly without a problem.

I guess there are some bugs in it.  But the problem is gone if we browse the control panel locally for some unknown reason.

Good luck!

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unsigned_nerd