Configuring the size of network packet trace buffer

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article provides steps to configure the size of network packet trace buffer.

You can run the command tcpdump-uw on ESXi hosts to capture packet traces from a VMkernel ( vmk) interface. The buffer size for packet traces in ESXi 4.x, ESXi 5.0, and ESXi 5.1 is limited to 8138 bytes. In ESXi 5.5, you can configure the buffer size manually.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Installable
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Installable

Resolution

To configure the buffer size in the ESXi Shell, run this command:

# tcpdump-uw -s snapshot_size -B buffer_size_in_KB

For example, to create a buffer size of 16KB, use the command:

# tcpdump-uw -s 0 -B 16

For more information about using tcpdump-uw, see Capturing a network trace in ESXi using Tech Support Mode or ESXi Shell (1031186).