VCenter 7.0 Backup Appliance, where are errors logged

[MikeBroderick]

I have a trial of VSphere 7.0 Essentials (I have been running the free ESXi servers and want to upgrade). I run the Backup Appliance but get an error. I figured out the problem (my FTP server wasnt configured correctly). OK, but I would like to know where Backup/Restore errors are logged. I looked at the file vmware.log in the VCenter VM's directory in the datastore, but this is the only thing for the whole day:

2020-10-01T12:18:41.304Z| vmx| I125: GuestRpc: Got RPCI vsocket connection 614, assigned to channel 1.

2020-10-01T12:18:42.648Z| vmx| I125: GuestRpc: Got error for channel 1 connection 615: Remote disconnected

2020-10-01T12:18:42.648Z| vmx| I125: GuestRpc: Closing channel 1 connection 615

This may not have anything to do with my Backup error (it was at the correct time, assuming these times are local not UTC). Does Backup log errors (better than this) somewhere? Where?

Also, is there a better way to look at a log file than:

     Go to the datastore and find the log file

     Download the log file into your PC

     Open Visual Studio, open the file

     Read the log.

Somewhere I saw something about setup for log file streaming, couldn't find an article that told me how to do it. Any suggestions or documentation references would be helpful.

Thank you.

[scott28tt · Accepted solution]

The vmware.log you found is just because the VCSA is a VM, all VMs have one of those in their folder.

This article is for 6.7, I would assume it applies to 7.0 too: vCSA 6.7 Backup Schedule Folder Structure

Log “streaming” uses syslog, both the VCSA and ESXi hosts can be configured to forward their logs to a syslog server. Again, this is a 6.7 article for the VCSA: Forward vCenter Server Appliance Log Files to Remote Syslog Server

VMware have a syslog server product which also does full analysis - vRealize LogInsight. There are products from other vendors which do a similar thing.