Logging

[jfleming]

I am navigating through the advanced properties in the VI client (Running version 3.0.0) and I see options for Enable debugging and Enable Logging- what is the difference between Logging and Debugging?? What are the ramifications of turning off logging and will this have an impact on perfromance??

Thanks!

[CZero]

I second this question: I'm very curious about that too, what is the impact on performance (if any) when you turn logging on in the advanced properties of a VM? I've been searching for information on this topic for a while now. I always leave logging off, until I need to find or solve issues. I don't believe in logging otherwise (except for journaling logs etc. of course), but the company I work for now has it turned on for each VM. Does this impact significantly?

[Texiwill]

Hello,

Disabling logging removes most but not all of the logging that takes enters vmware.log. It can increase performance if you have lots of log messages going into the file but this generally means there is a problem.

Debugging should NOT be enabled as it changes the way the VM runs and should only be used for debugging sessions or at support request. The log output is increased and the debug symbols are left in so core-dumps make sense. It also runs slower.

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

[rminick]

Along these lines, is there a way to turn logging on for many VM's? Maybe with powershell? I obviously don't want to turn logigng on 200 VM's one at a time :smileyshocked:

[Texiwill]

Hello,

By default Logging is enabled. You have to specifically disable it. You can script this or use powershell. I tend not to do this on my VMs, but do for customers, but I stick it in a template.

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

[rminick]

Unfortunately it got disabled in a template and 60 machines were rolled out before it was noticed :smileyshocked: Of course it was noticed when I had to open a support case and didn't have a good VM log. Hate to edit that many VM's manually. Too bad we can't select several VM's in VC at one time and perform a common action on all of them for certain common things like logging, boot delay, etc. That would rock! Save time in some cases from having to create a custom script for something simple.

Richard

[Texiwill]

Hello,

I would open a feature request for this by contacting your Vmware Sales Rep or your VMware Support Rep. They should be able to assist with this. I agree, useful feature.

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