Is it possible to generate a test "warning" message in hostd.log or vpxa.log to verify a log level change in ESXi?

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Administrators often change the logging level of ESXi management agents (hostd and vpxa) from info to warning to reduce log spam or conserve disk space. Following this change, administrators may want to verify that the new log level is active by intentionally injecting a test "warning" message into the hostd.log or vpxa.log files.

This article clarifies whether VMware provides a supported method or command to perform this test.

Environment

VMware ESXi 8.0

Resolution

Currently, there is no supported test command or built-in mechanism in ESXi to intentionally inject an arbitrary "warning" or "error" string into the hostd.log or vpxa.log files for testing purposes.

Additional Information

The logger command cannot be used:
While ESXi includes the logger command, it writes messages directly to the ESXi system logs (such as syslog.log). It completely bypasses the internal log-level filtering mechanisms of the hostd and vpxa processes, making it ineffective for verifying their specific log level configurations.

Do not intentionally induce failures:
VMware advises against intentionally creating abnormal conditions, disrupting storage/network connectivity, or performing invalid operations simply to trigger actual warnings or errors in the system. These approaches carry significant risks, including unexpected system impact, service disruption, and the generation of false alerts in your monitoring environment. Therefore, VMware Support does not provide instructions or scripts for such activities.

 

ESXi の hostd.log や vpxa.log にログレベル確認用の "warning" メッセージを意図的に出力したい