info needed on syslog server

[lvaibhavt]

Hi All,

I have two questions that I am unable to understand ---

First >>>> I followed article http://medkorp.com/DoTheJob/how-to-install-and-configure-vmware-syslog-collector-5-1/ and configured syslog server on the Virtual center Server.

I am able to see a file called syslog for my hosts. Which type of logs this file has ???

Second >>>>> I want to redirect log files from the ESXi host to a datastore. All the log files which are in /var/log in an esxi host to a datastore --- how can I do this?

thanks

Vaibhav

[linotelera]

Hi

esxi logs location should be in a persistent storage to avoid the waste of RAM disk or other side effects during the life of your host. For this reason there are 2 ways to store log:

1. Use syslog collector: in this case all log contents are redirect to this software using a "service" way

2. Move "scratch" files (including logs) out of the ram disk

Personally I prefer another approach more expansive but more "service provider": the use of Log insight, but if you have few host the second way could be better.

this was yet discussed on Re: VMware syslog collector... Answering your first question this file is a mixture of:

vobd

vpxa

vmkernal

hostd

fdm

vmkwarning

rhttpproxy

snmpd

hostd-probe

Answering your second question 2 KB could show you how to redirect log in syslog and in scratch way:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=200332...

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=103369...

Hope this could be useful

[lvaibhavt]

Hi linotelera,

Thank you for replying.

Thanks for answering my first question.

For the second question -- I followed http://www.vladan.fr/esxi-scratch-partition/ and was able to redirect the log files of a esxi host to a shared datastore. Now the doubt I have is first I configured syslog server and then I redirected the logs by creating a scratch partition.

Now the syslog file that was created for the host is not getting updated (post configuring scratch partition), is this is the way it should be ? Scratch Partition is getting updated.

Thanks

Vaibhav

[linotelera]

Hi

I think you could mix scratch and reomote syslog... Did you run the following commands after reboot?

esxcli system syslog config set –loghost=x.x.x.x

esxcli system syslog reload