Increasing the logging levels to verbose for vCenter Converter application components

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

During troubleshooting of a problem or error encountered with the Converter application, these log files are typically reviewed:

• vmware-converter-worker-#.log
• vmware-converter-server-#.log
• vmware-converter-agent-#.log

Sometimes, warnings or errors are seen and do not contain sufficient data to point to a root cause. By default, vCenter Converter logs informational data or INFO level logging. This usually provides log data that states if a failure or configuration problem has been encountered, but it may not be verbose enough to point to the root cause. Changing the logging level to verbose increases the amount of detail that is logged and can assist in the evaluation of a suspected issue encountered during a conversion process.

Environment

VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 4.3.x
VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.5.x
VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.0.x
VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 4.0.x
VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.1.x
VMware vCenter Converter 4.0.x

Resolution

To increase the logging level of each vCenter Converter component you must edit the configuration files and then restart the Windows services.

To increase the logging level:

1. Open each of these files for editing depending on the OS version:
   
   
• For Windows 2003/XP:
  
  
• C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone\converter-agent.xml
• C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone\converter-server.xml
• C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone\converter-worker.xml
  
  
• For Windows 7/WindowsVista/Windows 2008/Windows 2008 R2:
  
  

• C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone\converter-agent.xml
• C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone\converter-server.xml
• C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone\converter-worker.xml
  
  

• In each .xml file, locate this section:
  
  <log>
  <name>vmware-converter-worker</name>
  <level>info</level>
  </log>
  
  where the value in the <name> tags is the name of the file you have open.
  
  
• Adjust the <level>info</level> statement to read:
  
  <level>verbose</level>
  
  
• Restart these Windows services, to allow the new changes to take effect:
  
  
  • VMware vCenter Converter Standalone Server
  • VMware vCenter Converter Standalone Worker
  • VMware vCenter Converter Standalone Agent

Note: Even though Linux-based P2V conversions are considered agentless, the agent log may still contain valuable data. Therefore, it should still be included in the initial review for diagnosing problems relating to conversion processes.