hostd
and vpxa
management agents on VMware ESXi/ESX 3.5 to 4.1 can be configured to direct their logs to the local syslog
daemon in addition to their own local logging in the /var/log/vmware/
directory.syslog
facilities may cause /var/log/messages
to fill and rotate quickly. This may impair the ability to troubleshoot issues. VMware recommends that you use this configuration only if the local syslog
service on ESXi/ESX has been configured to route logging messages over the network to a remote syslog
log collector.syslog
collector, see Enabling syslog on ESX (1005030) or Enabling syslog on ESXi 3.5 and 4.x (1016621).syslog
services. The remote syslog
service could facilitate analysis or persistent storage of management agent logs centrally, in addition to kernel logs.syslog
services. The local syslog
daemon will store and rotate 8 MB of logs, which will be exhausted quickly by verbose management agent logs. For example, see The vpxa management agent fills local logs in ESXi 4.1 (1030672).hostd
and vpxa
management agent logging to the local syslog
service is controlled by a pair of configuration files.hostd
management agent logs to syslog
by default in ESXi 3.5 to 4.1, and does not in ESX 3.5 to 4.1. The vpxa
management agent logs to syslog
by default on ESXi managed by vCenter Server 4.1 and higher, and does not for earlier versions of vCenter Server or any version of ESX.hostd
and vpxa
on ESXi/ESX 3.5 or higher by modifying an XML configuration file for each management agent. The configuration file can be copied off-host using the vifs.pl
vSphere Command Line Interface utility, modified locally, and copied back. Alternatively, the file can be modified in-place from the console of the ESX host. For more information on the options, see Editing configuration files in VMware ESXi and ESX (1017022).vifs.pl
or another remote method, copy the configuration file from the ESXi/ESX host. For more information, see Editing configuration files in VMware ESXi and ESX (1017022).hostd
management agent /etc/vmware/hostd/config.xml
/host/hostAgentConfig.xml
vpxa
management agent/etc/opt/vmware/vpxa/vpxa.cfg
/host/vpxa.cfg
<log>
section within <config>
in the configuration file. For example:<config>
...
<log>
...
<level>verbose</level>
...
<log>
section of the configuration file, specifying three options:/config/log/outputToSyslog
syslog
. Use true
or false
. /config/log/syslog/ident
Hostd
or Vpxa
. /config/log/syslog/facility
syslog
facility that will be assigned to each log message. Use local3
for ESX 3.5, and local4
for all other versions of ESXi/ESX.local4
facility is utilized by storageMonitor
. Use local3
instead.syslog
by default, these tags are not present in the configuration file and must be added.<config>
...
<log>
...
<level>verbose</level>
<outputToSyslog>true</outputToSyslog>
<syslog>
<ident>Hostd</ident>
<facility>local4</facility>
</syslog>
</log>
vifs.pl
or another remote method, copy the modified configuration file back to the ESXi/ESX host./sbin/auto-backup
Note: In ESXi 4.1 Update 2 and later releases, vpxa and hostd logs are not written to /var/log/messages . You can enable this by setting logall=non_zero_value in the file /etc/syslog.conf and restarting the syslogd service. For example, to revert to the previous behavior, add the option logall=1 to /etc/syslog.conf. For more information, see The vpxa management agent fills local logs in ESXi 4.1(1030672).
syslog
collector, see Enabling syslog on ESX (1005030) or Enabling syslog on ESXi 3.5 and 4.x (1016621).