Generating live core dump for vmx

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article provides steps to generate live core dump for vmx.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0

Resolution

1. Log in to ESXi host through SSH or console as root.
2. Run the following command to list the all running virtual machines. The World ID is displayed at the beginning of each line.

vmdumper -l

Example output (Target virtual machine name is sample in this case)

wid=<WorldID>     pid=-1  cfgFile="/vmfs/volumes/########-########-####-############/sample/sample.vmx"       uuid="## ## ## ## ## ## ## ##-## ## ## ## ## ## ## ##"  displayName="sample"      vmxCartelID=#######

3. Run vmdumper command with vmx_force option to generate live core dump.

vmdumper <WorldID> vmx_force

Example output

Dumping vmx core (force)...

4. Check if a core file was generated.

ls /vmfs/volumes/########-########-####-############/<virtual machine name> | grep zdump

Example output

vmx-zdump.000

 

Note: If your environment uses vSphere Virtual Machine Encryption, vmx-zdump.000 is encrypted. For more information, refer to the following documentation.

vSphere Virtual Machine Encryption and Core Dumps

Additional Information

How to send NMI to Guest OS on ESXi 6.x or Later