Sending NMI to Guest OS via vSphere Client fails

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• When attempting to send a NMI to a Virtual Machine via the vSphere Client (Right-click VM > Export System Logs > select Send_NMI_To_Guest), the task fails.
  
  
  
• The log bundle download may result in a 1KB invalid file.
  
  
  
• The hostdCgiServer.log on the ESXi host contains errors similar to:
  

  YYYY-mm-ddTHH:MM:SS.zzzZ In(166) hostdCgiServer[132072]: [Originator@6876 sub=CgiHandler] Received HTTP POST request for URI /cgi-bin/vm-support.cgi?manifests=HungVM:Send_NMI_To_Guest
   ::
  YYYY-mm-ddTHH:MM:SS.zzzZ Er(163) hostdCgiServer[132417]: [Originator@6876 sub=CGI:vm-support.cgi] CGI command produced incorrect headers
  YYYY-mm-ddTHH:MM:SS.zzzZ Db(167) hostdCgiServer[132417]: [Originator@6876 sub=CGI:vm-support.cgi] Sent Internal Server Error response
  YYYY-mm-ddTHH:MM:SS.zzzZ Er(163) hostdCgiServer[132417]: [Originator@6876 sub=CGI:vm-support.cgi] CGI command failed (1):
  YYYY-mm-ddTHH:MM:SS.zzzZ Er(163) hostdCgiServer[132011]: -->

  
  
  
• The /var/log/vmsupport.log contains a error similar to:
  
  

  YYYY-mm-dd HH:MM:SS,zzz CRITICAL main.py:554 Unknown VM %2Fvmfs%2Fvolumes%2F########-########-####-############%2F<VM name>%2F<VM name>.vmx.  Run /usr/lib/vmware/hostd/cgi-bin/vm-support.cgi --listvms to get list of VMs

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 8.0 Update 3 to 8.0 Update 3d

Cause

Due to an escape character issue, ESXi fails to detect the VM for the support bundle collection.

Resolution

This issue is resolved in vCenter Server 8.0 Update 3e or later.

As a workaround, the vmdumper command can be used to send an NMI to the guest OS.

1. Identify the World ID (WID) of the target Virtual Machine:

   vmdumper -l
   
   Output example)
   wid=<World ID>      pid=-1  cfgFile="/vmfs/volumes/########-########-####-############/<VM name>/<VM name>.vmx"       uuid="## ## ## ## ## ## ## ##-## ## ## ## ## ## ## ##"  displayName="<VM name>"  vmxCartelID=<Cartel ID>

2. Send the NMI using the World ID found in the previous step:

   vmdumper <World ID> nmi

Additional Information

VMware vCenter Server 8.0 Update 3e Release Notes

PR 3432060: You get an invalid file when exporting system logs for virtual machines from the vSphere Client
Due to an escape character issue, when you export system logs on virtual machine from the vSphere Client, you get a 1KB invalid file.
This issue is resolved in this release.