VMware Communities: ESX 3.5 Virtual Switch Logs. Do they exist?

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8 Replies Last post: Jun 12, 2008 5:58 AM by Texiwill

ESX 3.5 Virtual Switch Logs. Do they exist?

Jun 11, 2008 11:05 AM

J_Wood 24 posts since
Mar 27, 2006

I have been asked to provide the logs from the virtual switches on one of my ESX 3.5 hosts. I am not aware of the existence of any such logs. Can anyone confirm this or set me straight?

Thanks!

_____________________________________________________________________
James Wood | Systems Administrator | Arizona Department of Transportation

Tags: 3.5, networking

Reply Re: ESX 3.5 Virtual Switch Logs. Do they exist? Jun 11, 2008 11:22 AM

weinstein5 6,211 posts since
Nov 19, 2005 VMware

What sort ofr information are you looking for? Because with 3.5 the virtual switches now support Ciswco Discovery Protocol -

Reply Re: ESX 3.5 Virtual Switch Logs. Do they exist? Jun 11, 2008 11:29 AM

in response to: weinstein5

J_Wood 24 posts since
Mar 27, 2006

They are troubleshooting a very high number of retransmit requests between our mainframe and a virtual machine running ftp services.

_____________________________________________________________________
James Wood | Systems Administrator | Arizona Department of Transportation

Reply Re: ESX 3.5 Virtual Switch Logs. Do they exist? Jun 11, 2008 11:34 AM

in response to: J_Wood

gary1012 410 posts since
Feb 20, 2008

I've never seen a transactional log that outlines connections built/torn-down within ESX. It might be best to sniff the network traffic using an analyzer or something like WireShark.

Reply Re: ESX 3.5 Virtual Switch Logs. Do they exist? Jun 11, 2008 11:38 AM

in response to: J_Wood

weinstein5 6,211 posts since
Nov 19, 2005 VMware

I do not know the existence of a log for the vswitches - As gary indicated perhaps some sort of network sniffer to monitor traffic - what do the logs on trhe FTP server say? The other thing you might monitor is the network traffic - I am wondering if you are saturating your nic ports - how is the network configured?

Reply Re: ESX 3.5 Virtual Switch Logs. Do they exist? Jun 11, 2008 11:42 AM

in response to: weinstein5

gary1012 410 posts since
Feb 20, 2008

Also, you may have to enable promiscious mode on the vSwitch to perform the sniff.

Reply Re: ESX 3.5 Virtual Switch Logs. Do they exist? Jun 11, 2008 11:49 AM

in response to: gary1012

Texiwill 10,056 posts since
Jan 13, 2004 Moderator

Hello,

You can also look at the traffic logs on the physical switch involved as well. Is the database inside the virtualization layer?

There are no vSwitch logs similar to what you will find on a pSwitch.

Best regards,
Edward L. Haletky
VMware Communities User Moderator
====
Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education. CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354, As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

Reply Re: ESX 3.5 Virtual Switch Logs. Do they exist? Jun 11, 2008 11:57 AM

in response to: gary1012

J_Wood 24 posts since
Mar 27, 2006

We are setting up the protocol analyzers now. We are monitoring the mainframe port and the switch ports on our core switch to this particular host.

I have two NICs on this particular network, one to each of two core data center switches. Utilization on the team is nominal, 275 Mbps or just less than 30% of one NIC.

_____________________________________________________________________
James Wood | Systems Administrator | Arizona Department of Transportation

Reply Re: ESX 3.5 Virtual Switch Logs. Do they exist? Jun 12, 2008 5:58 AM

in response to: J_Wood

Texiwill 10,056 posts since
Jan 13, 2004 Moderator

Hello,

Look at the pSwitches directly connected to the VMware ESX hosts. Once a customer had the wrong negotiation settings and these showed a huge number of errors. Also, ensure that for all ports connected to VMware ESX that portfast is enabled otherwise you will have issues if you are using STP (which I would assume is the case). In general, ESX likes to autonegotiate.

Best regards,
Edward L. Haletky
VMware Communities User Moderator
====
Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education. CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354, As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

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