[Internal] Modifying the VMsyslogd configuration files to change the default log rotation and size within ESXi

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article to modify the default log rotation and size of log files generated by the VMsyslogd service within vSphere ESXi.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0

Resolution

The VMsyslogd service runs on the vSphere ESXi host and determines the log rotation and size for each service running on the host. This service is one of the first services to initialize during boot.

VMsyslogd consists of two configurations locations:

 

• /etc/vmsyslogd.conf
  
  This file determined the default log rotations and files size for each service running on vSphere ESXi. Below is an example of vmsyslog.conf:
  
  [DEFAULT]
  loghost = <none>
  default_timeout = 180
  logdir_unique = false
  rotate = 8
  logdir = <none>
  size = 1024
  
  By default, the log file size is 1 MB as indicated by size=1024 (size in KB) and will maintain 8 log files within the rotation process as defined by rotate = 8.
   
• /etc/vmsyslog.conf.d/servicename.conf
  
  The folder /etc/vmsyslog.conf.d contains multiple files for each service on vSphere ESXi. These are unique files for each service in which you may specify values to override the default values defined in /etc/vmsyslogs.conf.
  
  Below is an example of hostd.conf:
  
  [vmsyslog-logger]
  fclass = FileLoggerMessageOnly
  rotate = 10
  descr = Hostd logs
  idents = Hostd
  nclass = NetworkFilterHostdTimestamp
  onrotate = logger -t Hostd < /var/run/vmware/hostdLogHeader.txt
  file = hostd
  id = hostd
  size = 10240

 

Using a text editor, you can make changes to these files and save your changes. These changes will not take effect until executing the following command on the host:

esxcli system syslog reload

 

Important: Modifying the VMsyslogd configuration files without a backup could cause system instability. For best practice, VMsyslogd parameter should be modified according to Configuring syslog on ESXi 5.x (2003322).

 

For more information on the ESXi VMsyslogd service, see [Internal] Understanding and troubleshooting the syslog or syslog-ng services in vSphere 5.x (1031674).

Additional Information

[Internal] Understanding and troubleshooting the syslog or syslog-ng services in vSphere 5.x (1031674)

[Internal] Understanding and troubleshooting the syslog or syslog-ng services in vSphere 5.x
Configuring syslog on ESXi

Impact/Risks:

• To make this configuration changes persistent between reboots run "auto-backup.sh" script.
• Increasing the number of log files or the log file size could increase the amount of disk spaced used for logging. Make sure to have sufficient disk space before applying these changes.