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Ashish-Chorge
Ashish-Chorge

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How to configure ESXi 7.x/8.x dump collector on vCenter Server 7.x/8.x

Prerequisite:

  • Make sure that vCenter Server has enough space in /storage/core/ partition using df -h command.

Procedure to configure:

  • 1] First thing first login to your vCenter Server appliance using web client (VAMI) and start the dump collector service. By default, this service, which starts manually, is in stopped state.

  • 2] Check current state of coredump. By default it is disabled.

   esxcli system coredump network check
   Network coredump not enabled
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  • 3] Confirm vmk0 is configured with the IP which is reachable to vCenter server.
esxcli network ip interface ipv4 get --interface-name=vmk0
Name  IPv4 Address  IPv4 Netmask   IPv4 Broadcast  Address Type  Gateway        DHCP DNS
----  ------------  -------------  --------------  ------------  -------------  --------
vmk0  192.168.1.20  255.255.255.0  192.168.1.255   STATIC        192.168.1.250     false
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  • 4] Set up an ESXi system to use ESXi Dump Collector by running esxcli system coredump in the local ESXi Shell or by using ESXCLI.
esxcli system coredump network set --interface-name vmk0 --server-ip 10.10.11.7 --server-port 6500
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10.10.11.7 is your vCenter Server IP

  • 5] Enable ESXi Dump Collector
esxcli system coredump network set --enable true
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  • 6] Check the details are set properly or not
esxcli system coredump network get
 Enabled: true
 Host VNic: vmk0
 Is Using IPv6: false
 Network Server IP: 10.10.11.7
 Network Server Port: 6500
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  • 7] Refresh the firewall rules so the changes take effect by running the command
esxcli network firewall refresh
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  • 8] Check the connectivity
nc -z -w 1 -s 192.168.1.20 -u 10.10.11.7 6500
  Connection to 10.10.11.7 6500 port [udp/*] succeeded!
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  • 9] Check current state of coredump. Now it should be in running state.
esxcli system coredump network check
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  • 10] Check the logs
root@set11-res-vc [ /var/log/vmware/netdumper ]# tail netdumper.log
2023-04-03T08:41:53.192Z In(05) netdumper Configured to handle 1024 clients in parallel.
2023-04-03T08:41:53.192Z In(05) netdumper Configuring /var/core/netdumps as the directory to store the cores
2023-04-03T08:41:53.192Z In(05) netdumper Configured to use wildcard [::0/0.0.0.0]:6500 as IP address:port
2023-04-03T08:41:53.192Z In(05) netdumper Using /var/log/vmware/netdumper/netdumper.log as the logfile.
2023-04-03T08:41:53.192Z In(05) netdumper Nothing to post process
2023-04-03T08:41:53.192Z In(05) netdumper Configured size limits: 5 GB per file, 10 GB per host, 20 GB for all
2023-04-03T08:41:53.192Z In(05) netdumper Running netdumper version 1.2
2023-04-03T08:41:53.192Z In(05) netdumper Netdumper Service is running in FIPS mode.
2023-04-03T08:45:15.028Z In(05) netdumper Posting back a status check reply to ::ffff:192.168.1.20
2023-04-03T09:04:26.763Z In(05) netdumper Posting back a status check reply to ::ffff:192.168.1.20
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Reference documents:

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