Obtaining process information in ESXi

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article provides ways to gather ESXi process information. This process information may help determine the cause of the symptoms.

Symptoms:

• ESXi disconnects from vCenter
• ESXi stops responding
• ESXi generates a purple diagnostics screen

Environment

VMware ESXi 4.1.x Installable
VMware ESXi 3.5.x Installable
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Embedded
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Installable
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0
VMware ESXi 3.5.x Embedded
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Embedded
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1

Resolution

Note: This article assumes you have command-line access to the ESXi host.

To analyse this issue and gather process information:

1. Run the minimalized ps command:
   
   ps -Tcjstv
   
   The output shows information such PID, command-line used, and state.
   
   
2. To generate output for certain processes and maintain a title row, run this command:
   
   
   ps -Tcjstv | egrep "WID|{proc-name}"
   
   
3. The esxcfg-info command can offer some detail on process memory and CPU and is contained in the vm-support dumps. Process information in esxcfg-info is contained in sections called Groups, but the groups can be cumbersome to sift through.
   
   Grep these groups for information on process memory and CPU with the command:
   
   esxcfg-info | egrep -A85 "Group Id" | egrep "Group Name|Group Id|Total CPU|Total Memory|Used Time|Parent Id|----Active\.\.\.\." | less
   
   
4. To check for file-system issues, run this command:
   
   stat –f {filesystem}
   
   Note: This checks inode use, from which a runaway process can sometimes be determined (even if you do not know exactly what files are involved).
   
   To check across all filesystems, run this command:
   
   stat -f `df | grep -v "Filesystem" | awk '{print $6}'` | egrep "File|Inodes"
   
   
5. To view network connection (socket) details, run this command:
   
   esxcli network connection list
   
   Note: For ESXi 5.x and later, run this command:
   
   esxcli network ip connection list
   

Note: At the time of publication, there is no way to tell how many open files a process holds (for example, lsof).

Additional Information