Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
9.
The next screen allows you to choose how the Dump Collector should be addressed by
the hosts on the network. You can pick between hostname or IP address. Using the host-
name has the advantage that it is easily recognizable by administrators during trouble-
shooting, but it relies on name resolution. If a host that has a kernel panic might be
running the only contactable DNS VM, then using a straight IP address would be a better
option. If the Windows server has multiple IP addresses, you need to pick the address
that the hosts can route to. The Dump Collector service will only bind to IPv4 addresses.
10.
Click Install.
11.
Click Finish to complete the installation.
12.
If you selected to integrate the installation with a vCenter installation, log into the
vSphere Client and check that it is registered. In the Client's home screen, under
Administration, click the VMware ESXi Dump Collector icon. You should see the Dump
Collector's details and port number.
Does the Dump Collector Support My Distributed Switches?
h e vSphere 5.5 Dump Collector (or any 5.
x
collector) will happily receive dumps regardless of
which switches the hosts use. However, ESXi 5.0 hosts don't support sending dumps to a central-
ized Dump Collector if their VMkernel default gateway (on the management network IP, usually
vmk0) is connected to a distributed switch. h is can be a native virtual distributed switch (vDS)
or a third-party switch such as the Cisco 1000v. h is was particularly troublesome before being
resolved with ESXi 5.1 because the larger enterprises that were probably licensed and using vDS
connections for converged network cabling and/or Auto Deploy provisioning were also the most
likely candidates to want to use the Dump Collector feature.
If you have existing ESXi 5.0 hosts that use distributed switches, then there are a number of options
available. You can upgrade the hosts to at least 5.1, you can move your management connection
off the distributed switch to a standard host-based vSwitch, or you can point the core dumps to
a local disk.
Configuring ESXi Hosts to Redirect Their Core Dumps
The primary method to coni gure hosts to redirect their core dumps to your newly minted ESX
Dump Collector is to use the esxcli command-line tool:
1.
Log into your host via SSH, via the local ESXi shell, or using a vMA or vCLI installation
(vMA or vCLI usage requires additional context switches to identify the host).
2.
Review the existing Dump Collector coni guration:
esxcli system coredump network get
3.
Coni gure the host's dump redirection settings (management VMkernel interface and col-
lector's IP and port):
esxcli system coredump network set -v vmk0 -i 192.168.199.5 -o 6500
