Collecting a log bundle from an ESXi installer that does not complete

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

In the event an installation of ESXi fails, you may need to collect a log bundle from the installation instance. During the installation wizard, it is not possible to extract a log bundle. This is primarily due to no network address being defined, and Serial Logging being the only option.

 

This article walks through the process to configure a Management Network address to be able to successfully collect a vm-support bundle from an incomplete installation of ESXi.

 

The diagnostic information obtained by using this article is uploaded to VMware Technical Support. To uniquely identify your information, use the Support Request (SR) number you receive when you create the new SR.

• For information on opening a support request, see https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article?articleNumber=323990
• For information on uploading your support files, see  https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article?articleNumber=140731
• For information on obtaining diagnostic information for other VMware products, see https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/319493/collecting-diagnostic-information-for-vm.html 

Resolution

Login to the shell for the ESXi installer and collect a log bundle

With the installer running in memory, perform the following:

1. Type ALT+F1.
2. When prompted login with the user account root and no password.
3. Run vm-support from the command prompt to generate an ESXi log bundle.
4. Note the location the log bundle is written to (commonly /var/tmp/).

Configure a management network address

By default, the ESXi instance will have a Standard vSwitch, standard port groups (Management and VM Network), and one uplink (vmnic0).

There is no vmkernel interface, subnet, gateway or route.

Example:

 

From the ESXi installer, you will need to us localcli to configure a VMkernel network adapter:

• Configure a Management Network address
  • localcli network ip interface ipv4 set --interface-name=vmkX --ipv4=ipaddress --netmask=netmask --type=static

• ​Configure an ESXi default gateway
  • ​localcli network ip route ipv4/ipv6 add --gateway IPv4_address_of_router --network IPv4_address.

Optional: If VLAN trunking is associated with the vmnic, you will need to run an additional command to define the VLAN ID
- ​localcli network vswitch standard portgroup set -p portgroup --vlan-id VLAN

• At this point, the ESXi installer should have a valid IP address and communicate on the network.
• In order to copy the log bundle off of the installer, enable SSH:/etc/init.d/SSH start 
• Using WinSCP, connect to the ESXi installer, and copy the log bundle from the instance. When complete, upload the logs to the SFTP/FTP site. For more information, see Uploading files to cases on the Broadcom Support Portal

 

Additional Information

See for more information on Configuring Standard vSwitch (vSS) or virtual Distributed Switch (vDS) from the command line in ESXi https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article?legacyId=1008127 and vsphere 6.5 Guide.