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VMware logs

 

 VMware logfiles are very useful to debug problems with virtual machines.

They can be used to restore lost vmx-files and even lost virtual-disk descriptorfiles.
A full log from the last successful start may be enough to recover a broken snapshot-tree.

It is a pity that no information on reading VMware-logs is available.

Anyway - Rob, Oliver and me started to work on a VM-browser
and would like to include some trouble-shooting functions as well.

To better understand the current state of a VM we scan through the latest log and
look for strings that are related to a special problem.
Lets look at an example:

"FLOPPYLIB-IMAGE: Invalid boot sector: signature 00, sector size 0, sectors 0"

 

If a VMware.log contains this line - the VM never got past a black screen at boot - it hangs forever.

This problem occurs when you use an unformatted floppyimage - connected at boot.
Most users will not see a relation here - they just wonder why nothing happens.

A future VM-browser with troubleshooting functions would be able to give the user a hint like this:

You may want to set the floppy to start disconnected.

We believe that collecting some of these "diagnostic-log strings" will be useful for the VMware-user - community.

That's why we ask for help with collecting this strings.

If you think that you got useful information please post them to the VMTN - here:
or here: Diagnostic-log strings discussion

Or send an email with "diagnostic logstrings" to the webmaster at sanbarrow dot com.

Every useful suggestion will be added to the public list below
- and may be used for future trouble-shooting functions of the VMbrowser-project.

 

More on the VMbrowser / Diskreport-project:

sanbarrow - forum
"You should do this yourself" post at VMTN

Diagnostic-log strings discussion

 

logstring name description suggestion
"vmx| VMX exit." clean exit VMware has cleanly exited nothing to do
"vmx| DUMPER: Dumper_EndRestore" clean resume looks like this VM has beed resumed cleanly nothing to do
"vmx| DUMPER: Creating checkpoint file" clean suspend looks like this VM has been suspended cleanly nothing to do
"vmx| VMXVmdbCbVmVmxExecState: Exec state change requested to state poweredOff without reset" manual poweroff VM has been stopped via the "Stop-button" nothing to do
"vcpu-0| CPU reset: hard" clean start VM has been initialized successfully nothing to do
       
       
       
       
"FLOPPYLIB-IMAGE: Invalid boot sector: signature 00, sector size 0, sectors 0" unformatted flp bug VM hangs forever at bootup set the floppy to start disconnected
       
"Grain #* @* is orphaned. " sparsedisk broken a growing disk is corrupted EMERGENCY: use vdk or forensic tools to recover your data
"msg.disklib.tooBigForFS" file too large VMware can't handle the filesystem try to add:
diskLib.sparseMaxFileSizeCheck = "FALSE"
"tripple fault" tripple fault serious - immediate crash - no core-dump DO NOT START AGAIN- needs indepth troubleshooting

 

 




Above are some examples for useful strings.

For automatic scanning through logs we will use the information from above in a machine-readable ini-file.
This will be available from here - so if you want to make use of this information for your own scripts - feel free to do so.

You see a lot of blank space right now - so if you find this useful please help us to populate the list.

 

Thanks Ulli

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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