vSphere 6 Dump / Syslog Collector: PowerCLI Script

This is a quick update for a post I previously wrote on configuring vSphere 5 Syslog and Network Dump Collectors. You can find it here. This post will be about the changes in version 6.

Scripts I reposted for version 5 no longer work for version 6, so I thought I’d do an update. If you’re looking just for the updated scripts, simply scroll down to the end of the post.

What’s new in vSphere 6

If you look at the scripts all that’s changed is the order and number of the arguments. Which is not overly exciting.

What’s more interesting is that with vSphere 6 Syslog and ESXi Dump Collectors are no longer a separate install. They’re bundled with vCenter and you won’t see them as separate line items in the vCenter installer.

What I’ve also noticed is that ESXi Dump Collector service is not started automatically, so make sure to go to the services on the vCenter VM and start it manually.

Dump Collector vCenter plugin doesn’t seem to exist any more as well. But you are still able to see Syslog Collector settings in vCenter.

Another thing worth mentioning here is also the directories where the logs and dumps are kept. In vCenter 6 they can be found by these paths:

C:\ProgramData\VMware\vCenterServer\data\vmsyslogcollector

C:\ProgramData\VMware\vCenterServer\data\netdump\Data

 

PowerShell Get-EsxCli Cmdlet

Also want to quickly touch on the fact that the below scripts are written using the Get-EsxCli cmdlet to get a EsxCli object and then directly invoke its methods.  Which I find not very ideal, as it’s not clear what each of the arguments actually mean and because the script gets broken every time the number or order of the arguments changes. Which is exactly what’s happened here.

There are Set-VMHostSyslogConfig and Set-VMHostDumpCollector cmdlets, which use argument names such as -SyslogServer and -Protocol, which are self explanatory. I may end up rewriting these scripts if I have time. But at the end of the day both ways will get the job done.

Maybe one hint is if you’re lost and not sure about the order of the arguments, run this cmdlet on a EsxCli object to find out what each argument actually mean:

$esxcli.system.coredump.network | Get-Member

ESXi Dump Collector PowerCLI script:

Foreach ($vmhost in (get-vmhost))
{
$esxcli = Get-EsxCli -vmhost $vmhost
$esxcli.system.coredump.network.get()
}

Foreach ($vmhost in (get-vmhost))
{
$esxcli = Get-EsxCli -vmhost $vmhost
$esxcli.system.coredump.network.set($null, “vmk0”, $null, “10.10.10.10”, 6500);
$esxcli.system.coredump.network.set($true)
}

There are a couple commands to check the ESXi Dump Collector configuration, as it’s not always clear if it’s able to write a core dump until a PSOD actually happens.

First command checks if Dump Collector service on a ESXi host can connect to the Dump Collector server and the second one actually forces ESXi host to purple screen if you want to be 100% sure that a core dump is able to be written. Make sure to put the ESXi host into maintenance mode if you want to go that far.

# esxcli system coredump network check

# vsish
# set /reliability/crashMe/Panic

Syslog Collector PowerCLI script:

Foreach ($vmhost in (get-vmhost))
{
$esxcli = Get-EsxCli -vmhost $vmhost
$esxcli.system.syslog.config.get()
}

Foreach ($vmhost in (get-vmhost))
{
$esxcli = Get-EsxCli -vmhost $vmhost
$esxcli.system.syslog.config.set($null, $null , $null, $null, $null, $null, $null, $null, “udp://vcenter.domain.local:514”, $null, $null);
$esxcli.network.firewall.ruleset.set($null, $true, “syslog”)
$esxcli.system.syslog.reload()
}

For the Syslog Collector it’s important to remember that there’s a firewall rule on each ESXi host, which needs to be enabled (the firewall ruleset command in the script).

For the Dump Collector there’s no firewall rule. So if you looking for it and can’t find, it’s normal to not have it by default.

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vSphere Dump / Syslog Collector: PowerCLI Script

Overview

If you install ESXi hosts on say 2GB flash cards in your blades which are smaller than required 6GB, then you won’t have what’s called persistent storage on your hosts. Both your kernel dumps and logs will be kept on RAM drive and deleted after a reboot. Which is less than ideal.

You can use vSphere Dump Collector and Syslog Collector to redirect them to another host. Usually vCenter machine, if it’s not an appliance.

If you have a bunch of ESXi hosts you’ll have to manually go through each one of them to set the settings, which might be a tedious task. Syslog can be done via Host Profiles, but Enterprise Plus licence is not a very common things across the customers. The simplest way is to use PowerCLI.

Amendments to the scripts

These scripts originate from Mike Laverick’s blog. I didn’t write them. Original blog post is here: Back To Basics: Installing Other Optional vCenter 5.5 Services.

The purpose of my post is to make a few corrections to the original Syslog script, as it has a few mistakes:

First – typo in system.syslog.config.set() statement. It requires additional $null argument before the hostname. If you run it as is you will probably get an error which looks like this.

Message: A specified parameter was not correct.
argument[0];
InnerText: argument[0]
…

Second – you need to open outgoing syslog ports, otherwise traffic won’t flow. It seems that Dump Collector traffic is enabled by default even though there is no rule for it in the firewall (former netDump rule doesn’t exist anymore). Odd, but that’s how it is. Syslog on the other hand requires explicit rule, which is reflected in the script by network.firewall.ruleset.set() command.

Below are the correct versions of both scripts. If you copy and paste them everything should just work.

vSphere Dump Collector

Foreach ($vmhost in (get-vmhost))
{
$esxcli = Get-EsxCli -vmhost $vmhost
$esxcli.system.coredump.network.get()
}

Foreach ($vmhost in (get-vmhost))
{
$esxcli = Get-EsxCli -vmhost $vmhost
$esxcli.system.coredump.network.set($null, “vmk0”, “10.0.0.1”, “6500”)
$esxcli.system.coredump.network.set($true)
}

vSphere Syslog Collector

Foreach ($vmhost in (get-vmhost))
{
$esxcli = Get-EsxCli -vmhost $vmhost
$esxcli.system.syslog.config.get()
}

Foreach ($vmhost in (get-vmhost))
{
$esxcli = Get-EsxCli -vmhost $vmhost
$esxcli.system.syslog.config.set($null, $null, $null, $null, $null, “udp://10.0.0.1:514”)
$esxcli.network.firewall.ruleset.set($null, $true, “syslog”)
$esxcli.system.syslog.reload()
}