Last week I installed some new vSphere hosts with flash disk storage. Some hosts has a yellow caution icon and a message stating:

Configuration Issues – System logs on host [hostname] are stored on non-persistent storage.

Solution:

Verify the location of System logs:

1. In vSphere Client, select the host in the inventory panel.
2. Click the Configuration tab, then click Advanced Settings under Software.
3. Ensure that Syslog.global.logDir points to a persistent location.

   The directory should be specified as [datastorename] path_to_file where the path is relative to the datastore. For example, [datastore1] /systemlogs.

4. If the Syslog.global.logDir field is empty or explicitly points to a scratch partition, make sure that the field ScratchConfig.CurrentScratchLocation shows a location on persistent storage.

Result:

After a few minutes the logs are stored at the new location (in this case I used central storage):

More information: VMware

sanderdaems

Sander Daems is founder and author of this blog and working as a Lead (Sr.) Consultant by UNICA ICT Solutions. Sander has over 15 years experience in IT, primary focus: virtualization and modern worksplace.

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PowerCLI script:

#====================================================================#
#   SCRIPT:        PowerCLI_configure_syslog_settings_host.ps1       #
#   FUNCTION:      Add remote syslog server, settings and  open      #
#                  firewall ports in cluster                         #
#   OWNER:         Sander Daems                                      #
#   VSPHERE:       5.5 build 1331820                                 #
#   CREATED:       18/12/2013                                        #
#   MODIFIED:      18/12/2013                                        #
#   VERSION:       v.1.0                                             #
#====================================================================#
#   CHANGELOG:                                                       #
#                                                                    #
#    v.1.0                                                           #
#    - Script created;                                               #
#                                                                    #
#====================================================================#
# CUSTOM DEFINITIONS                                                 #
#====================================================================#
$vCenterServer = Read-Host "Enter vCenter Hostname / IP"
$vmhost = Get-VMHost
#====================================================================#
# HOST - Specify host and connect                                    #
#====================================================================#
Connect-VIServer $vCenterServer
#====================================================================#
# SCRIPT - SYSLOG - Update Syslog settings                           #
#====================================================================#
$vmhost | Set-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration -NameValue @{'Config.HostAgent.log.level'='info';'Vpx.Vpxa.config.log.level'='info';'Syslog.global.logHost'='udp://10.180.200.18:514'}
#====================================================================#
# SCRIPT - FIREWALL - Open ESXi firewall port                        #
#====================================================================#
$vmhost | Get-VMHostFirewallException -VMhost $vmhost -name syslog | Set-VMHostFirewallException -Enabled $true
#====================================================================#

vCenter Syslog Collector settings:

Script result:

sanderdaems

Sander Daems is founder and author of this blog and working as a Lead (Sr.) Consultant by UNICA ICT Solutions. Sander has over 15 years experience in IT, primary focus: virtualization and modern worksplace.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me: