Vmware Log files growing...can I remove\resize?

[alex2875]

Hi to all,

I'm experiencing a log growing activity in my datastore of esxi 5.1 u2, I wondering if i can delete or disable logs so i can recover some storage because full datastore cause machines slowing and locking sometimes...

Is that possible? How?

Thank you.

[a_p_]

Are you running Windows Terminal Services/Citrix XenApp on the VMs? There's a known issue (http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2036350) which causes the vmware.log file to grow over time (I saw files consuming several GigaBytes). According to the KB article the issue is supposed to be fixed, but it still occurs with ESXi 5.5.

You can disable and/or delete the log file (if they are not currently locked). Shutting down the VM or vMotion will cause a log rotation, i.e. unlock the current log file.

André

[admin]

There is 2 issues there. You might have a built that causes spew in the vmware.log file. That wouldn't be too bad if you could get the logs to rotate.

Unfortunately there is an issue with the rotation as well. Currently the vmware.log file will only rotate on power-cycle (real one, not just restart within guest, the world needs to die), vMotion or (fast) Suspend/Resume. This is due to be fixed though hopefully soon.

You might find old KBs referencing some vmx parameters or host parameters to force the vmware.log files to rotate, these don't currently work in 5.5.

[a_p_]

... Unfortunately there is an issue with the rotation as well ... This is due to be fixed though hopefully soon.

I doubt that this is an issue that will be fixed. Please see the response I got from VMware about this.

André

PS: Forgot to add the link VM log files in vSPhere 5.5

[admin]

Let me dig up the current status on that next week

I mean the most sense would make to possibly have it disabled by default but still enable the choice to have those parameters working again if you want to.