VMware Communities: Message List - viewing a VM's vmware.log

Re: viewing a VM's vmware.log

vmwaeiscsi — Sun, 03 May 2009 18:37:22 GMT

Hi
can you please write back how to add the plug in for VC to find vmware.log.
thank you
sp

Re: viewing a VM's vmware.log

bruce.downs — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 21:31:44 GMT

Right, that was my original question. Looking back on how I solved the problem, there still doesn't appear to be a PS way. Like you said, there's no "read." That would be a good enhancement. Our IT department has several production VMs and when they go south or hiccup, the first thing they do it view vmware.log.

My web app implements the viewing of a VM's log file in VI Client by 1) logging in using given session id, 2) resolving the VM's moref, 3) resolving the url to the VM's vmware.log file, 4) doing an http get on the url, and finally 5) displaying the vmware.log file from the http response.

Bruce

Re: viewing a VM's vmware.log

LucD — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 19:27:59 GMT

A nice "teaser"

Would the method you used be feasible from within a PS script ?
I couldn't find an SDK method to "read" the VMX file.

Re: viewing a VM's vmware.log

bruce.downs — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 18:25:23 GMT

Currently, it is just a hack that I put together. Our business guy (from Configuresoft) will be showing it at VMworld in a couple of weeks along with a "real" plug-in that I wrote for the show. The real plug-in integrates our ECM product with the VI Client. It includes compliance reports, detailed machine reports, green reports, integration points, etc for all ESX/ESXi servers and their guests that are managed by our product.

I'm not sure how our business people want to handle my plug-ins, but I suspect it'll be a free offering if productized. And I'll advocate misc plug-ins be open sourced or packaged and posted on vmware.com's community site.

Bruce

Re: viewing a VM's vmware.log

LucD — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 07:55:54 GMT

Hi Bruce,
Is this a free plug-in ?
Or is it part of their ECM product ?

Re: viewing a VM's vmware.log

bruce.downs — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 23:58:09 GMT

I'm playing with VI Client plug ins and came up with a cool plug in to view a VM's vmware.log and VMX file. In the VI Client, just right click on a VM and choose 'View vmware.log' or 'View VMX' and it brings up a new window with the file contents loaded.

It includes an XML configuration file to add the menu items, a C# COM object to login and retrieve vmware.log, an ASP page to call the COM object, and an IIS web app to host the ASP page.

Check out the usage in the attached Word document.

Re: viewing a VM's vmware.log

halr9000 — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 20:59:56 GMT

I wish I could answer this one but I can't. There is an experimental file browsing facility with this version of the toolkit but its barebones right now. There is no feature to download the files, just scan the listings.

Creating a PSDrive to browse your inventory

Until VMw enhances this facility and/or writes high level cmdlets, it cannot be done easily. With enough delving into the SDK it would be possible. I need to check out vifs.pl to see what it does.

Other options are to wrap plink.exe or even the RCLI. Would be a little odd and not as robust of course.

Author of the upcoming book: Managing VMware Infrastructure with PowerShell
Co-Host, PowerScripting Podcast (http://powerscripting.net)

viewing a VM's vmware.log

bruce.downs — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:54:16 GMT

Does anyone know of a way to view a given VM's vmware.log file in the PowerShell Toolkit?

On ESX 3.x I do the following:
$ tail /vmfs/volumes/VirtualMachines2/de3vc20/vmware.log

or the VM's vmx file
$ tail /vmfs/volumes/VirtualMachines2/de3vc20/de3vc20.vmx

On ESXi, I use the Remote CLI's vifs.pl to copy locally and then view in local viewer.

Either way, it's a tedious task if I use VI Client and Virtual Center as my management interface.