Collecting diagnostic information for VMware Cloud Director

Products

VMware Cloud Director

Issue/Introduction

VMware Technical Support routinely requests diagnostic information from you when a support request is handled. This diagnostic information contains product specific logs and configuration files from the host on which the product is run. The information is gathered using a specific script or tool for each product.

For more information on opening a support request, see Contact Support.
For information on uploading support files, see Uploading files to cases on the Broadcom Support Portal.

This article provides procedures for obtaining diagnostic information for VMware Cloud Director.

Environment

VMware Cloud Director

Resolution

The vmware-vcd-support script collects host log information as well as Cloud Director logs. To generate the logs, log in directly or by using an SSH client to the VMware Cloud Director server as root, and enter the following shortcut. The shortcut will collect the logs from all available cells.

generate_support_bundle

Alternatively for a single cell log collection you can use this command: /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/vmware-vcd-support

For multiple cells and packages, you can also alternatively use this command and syntax to collect all the log bundles. The command will place the bundle in the transfer directory and report the exact location:
Running a Multi-Cell Log Collection will not collect the Java Thread Dump, if required, run a Single Log Collection from the required Cells.

/opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/vmware-vcd-support -m -l

Do not use the -a option as this generates a database dump in a format that cannot be utilized by VMware Technical Support.
- For Appliance based instances of Cloud Director, see the Installation, Configuration and Upgrade Guide.
- For Linux based instances of Cloud Director, speak to your Database Administrator
If there is an error reported when running a Multi-Cell Log Collection you can instead generate a log bundle for all Cells individually by running the Single Log Collection from each Cell in turn:

/opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/vmware-vcd-support

A Multi-Cell log Collection may fail if the logs from all cells fail to be collected within the default 7 minutes. This may occur if there are large files present on the cells in the environment. For information on how to cleanup disk space review kb Cloud Director Portal becomes inaccessible due to cell space issues.
The default 7 minute timeout can be adjusted by increasing the TIMEOUT_IN_MINUTES value in the file /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/vmware-vcd-multi-cell-log-collector. Within the file, the relevant entry appears by default as follows:

# Maximum time to wait for all the cells to complete log generation
readonly TIMEOUT_IN_MINUTES=7

When you run the vmware-vcd-support script, it creates a file in the folder where the script was executed from. For example: vmware-vcd-support-2019-07-11.25214.tgz

Log Types

Type	Purpose	Location
Cloud	Cloud Director Service Logs	`/opt/vmware/vcloud-director/logs/`
Appliance	Cloud Director Appliance Logs	`/opt/vmware/var/log/`
Database	Cloud Director Database Logs	`/opt/vmware/vpostgres/current/pgdata/log/`
VAMI	Cloud Director Appliance VAMI and Upgrade Logs	`/opt/vmware/var/log/vami/`

Key Logs

Name	Type	Purpose
`vcloud-container-debug.log`	Cloud	Main log for Cloud Director. Also has an info.log equivalent when is less verbose
`cell-runtime.log`	Cloud	Monitors all inter-cell communications
`<date>.request.log`	Cloud	Logs all inbound API Calls to a Cell
`networking.log, networking-wire.log`	Cloud	Contains all Cloud to/from NSX communication
`cloud-health-<date><time>.log`	Cloud	Contains a Health overview of the environment from a Cell perspective
`postgresl-<date>.log`	Database	Logging used by the vpostgres service
`Firstboot.log`	Appliance	Initial boot log for a deployment
`configure-vcd.log`	Appliance	Covers post deployment setup such as Repmgr configuration
`vami-ovf.log`	VAMI	Logs the configuration input used when deploying an appliance OVF

Notes:

The logs for VMware Cloud Director are located in /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/logs.
Support bundles can vary in size, ensure that at least 10GB space is available for single/multi cell log collection.