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Cheride
Contributor
Contributor

Question on ESXi5.x syslog

Does the ESXi 5.x server "syslog" contains the log information from hostd.log and vpxa.log?  If now how can we redirect hostd and vpxa logs to syslog so that I can collect all events from the syslog server.

Thanks

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7 Replies
Cheride
Contributor
Contributor

experts, can you provide me an answer???

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Cheride
Contributor
Contributor

I think I fould the answer by myself...

Logs for an ESXi 5.0 host are grouped according to the source component:

  • /var/log/auth.log: ESXi Shell authentication success and failure. 
  • /var/log/dhclient.log: DHCP client service, including discovery, address lease requests and renewals. 
  • /var/log/esxupdate.log: ESXi patch and update installation logs. 
  • /var/log/hostd.log: Host management service logs, including virtual machine and host Task and Events, communication with the vSphere Client and vCenter Server vpxa agent, and SDK connections 
  • /var/log/shell.log: ESXi Shell usage logs, including enable/disable and every command entered.  
  • /var/log/sysboot.log: Early VMkernel startup and module loading. 
  • /var/log/boot.gz: A compressed file that contains boot log information and can be read using zcat /var/log/boot.gz|more
  • /var/log/syslog.log: Management service initialization, watchdogs, scheduled tasks and DCUI use. 
  • /var/log/usb.log: USB device arbitration events, such as discovery and pass-through to virtual machines. 
  • /var/log/vob.log: VMkernel Observation events, similar to vob.component.event
  • /var/log/vmkernel.log: Core VMkernel logs, including device discovery, storage and networking device and driver events, and virtual machine startup.
  • /var/log/vmkwarning.log: A summary of Warning and Alert log messages excerpted from the VMkernel logs. 
  • /var/log/vmksummary.log: A summary of ESXi host startup and shutdown, and an hourly heartbeat with uptime, number of virtual machines running, and service resource consumption. For more information,

When we send this to a remote syslog server, you will see only one file "syslog.log" which actually contains entries from all the files listed above. So that means syslog.log is the one stop place for all your esxi5 logs.

Experts: Please correct me if this finding is not correct.

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MKguy
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Yes, the syslog stream from ESXi hosts by default already includes all messages that are written to local hostd and vpxa logs.

-- http://alpacapowered.wordpress.com
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Cheride
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks MKguy

Is the /var/log/syslog.log is different from the syslog.log that I see on the syslog connector server or scratch location?

(http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2004201

Also, is this the same case with ESX 4.1 servers . Is it true that we have to configure the hostd and vpxa to send messages to sylog.log manually

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MKguy
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

The destination syslog server probably just uses "syslog.log" as the default filename for the syslog stream, so yes, it is different.

If you want to split the resulting logfile then you could filter by keywords on the destination syslog server, similar to how it's done here:

http://alpacapowered.wordpress.com/2012/10/08/vma-as-syslog-server/

I'm not sure about 4.1 but I think it should work the same way.

-- http://alpacapowered.wordpress.com
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Cheride
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks. Much Appreciated.

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Hiront
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

It correct.

But you can custumize in /etc/vmware/hostd/config.xml file

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