ESX, ESXi and VM Log Locations

February 7, 2012 Logs, VMware No comments
Logs can help you find out what happened if commands do not have the desired results. On ESXi 5.0 systems, find all logs in the /var/log directory. Some of the items in that directory are symbolic links from the /var/run/log directory.

On ESXi 4.1 systems, you can find the following logs.

Location of Log Files for VMware Products

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/documentLinkInt.do?micrositeID=&popup=true&languageId=&externalID=1021806

Host and VM Log Locations

Location

Component

 
/var/log/vmware/vmware-serverd.log ESX Server 2.x service log
var/log/vmware/hostd.log Host management service logs, including virtual machine and host Tasks and Events, communication with the vSphere Client and vCenter Server vpxa agent, and SDK connections.
/var/log/vmware/vpx/vpxa.log vSphere client agent log
After you reboot your machine, files /root/vmkernel-log.<date> and /root/vmkernel-core.<date> are present. Virtual machine kernel core file
/var/log/messages Messages from the Service Console Linux kernel, including service startup and shutdown.
/var/log/vmksummary Summary of ESX host startup and shutdown, and an hourly heartbeat with uptime, number of virtual machines running, and service console resource consumption
/var/log/vmkernel VMkernel messages, alerts, and availability report, Core VMkernel logs, including device discovery, storage and networking device and driver events, and virtual machine startup.
/var/log/vmkwarning Summary of Warning and Alert log messages excerpted from the VMkernel logs.
vmware.logIn the same directory as the VMX file for the virtual machine Virtual machine log file
/.vmx Located on a datastore associated with the managed host. Use the virtual machine summary page in the vSphere Client to determine the datastore on which this file is located. Virtual machine configuration file
var/log/boot-logs/sysboot.log Early VMkernel startup, module loading, and host initialization.
/var/log/vmkiscsid.log Software iSCSI Client logs.

vCenter Log Locations

/var/log/vmware/vpx/vpxa.log vCenter Server vpxa agent logs, including communication with vCenter Server and the Host Management hostd agent.
/var/log/vmware/fdm/* VMware High Availability Logs for vCenter Server 5
/var/log/vmware/aam/* VMware High Availability Logs for vCenter Server 4

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