Vsphere

Product - vSphere - ESX NSX (Controller, Manager, Edge)¶

Vmware vsphere product line has multiple old and known issues in syslog output.

GUID values sent in place of time stamp
Improper time stamp in all RFC5424 events
No PRI
No syslog header for some split events
mismatch syslog header for some split events (segment 1 contains header remaining segments contain no header)

WARNING use of a load balancer with udp will cause “corrupt” event behavior due to out of order message processing caused by the load balancer

Ref	Link
Splunk Add-on ESX	https://splunkbase.splunk.com/app/5603/
Splunk Add-on Vcenter	https://splunkbase.splunk.com/app/5601/
Splunk Add-on nxs	none
Splunk Add-on vsan	none

Sourcetypes¶

sourcetype	notes
`vmware:esxlog:${PROGRAM}`	None
`vmware:nsxlog:${PROGRAM}`	None
`vmware:vclog:${PROGRAM}`	None
nix:syslog	When used with a default port, this will follow the generic NIX configuration. When using a dedicated port, IP or host rules events will follow the index configuration for vmware nsx

Sourcetype and Index Configuration¶

key	sourcetype	index	notes
vmware_vsphere_esx	`vmware:esxlog:${PROGRAM}`	infraops	none
vmware_vsphere_nsx	`vmware:nxlog:${PROGRAM}`	infraops	none
vmware_vsphere_nsxfw	`vmware:nxlog:dfwpktlogs`	infraops	none
vmware_vsphere_vc	`vmware:vclog:${PROGRAM}`	infraops	none

Filter type¶

MSG Parse: This filter parses message content when using the default configuration. SC4S will normalize the structure of vmware events from multiple incorrectly formed varients to rfc5424 format to improve parsing

Setup and Configuration¶

Review and update the splunk_metadata.csv file and set the index and sourcetype as required for the data source.
Refer to the Splunk TA documentation for the specific customer format required for proxy configuration
Select TCP or SSL transport option
Ensure the format of the event is customized per Splunk documentation

Options¶

Variable	default	description
SC4S_LISTEN_VMWARE_VSPHERE_TCP_PORT	empty string	Enable a TCP port for this specific vendor product using a comma-separated list of port numbers
SC4S_LISTEN_VMWARE_VSPHERE_UDP_PORT	empty string	Enable a UDP port for this specific vendor product using a comma-separated list of port numbers
SC4S_LISTEN_VMWARE_VSPHERE_TLS_PORT	empty string	Enable a TLS port for this specific vendor product using a comma-separated list of port numbers
SC4S_SOURCE_VMWARE_VSPHERE_GROUPMSG	empty string	empty/yes groups known instances of improperly split events set “yes” to return to enable

Verification¶

An active proxy will generate frequent events. Use the following search to validate events are present per source device

index=<asconfigured> sourcetype="vmware:vsphere:*" | stats count by host

Automatic Parser Configuration¶

Enable the following options in the env_file

#Do not enable with a SNAT load balancer
SC4S_USE_NAME_CACHE=yes
#Combine known split events into a single event for Splunk
SC4S_SOURCE_VMWARE_VSPHERE_GROUPMSG=yes
#Learn vendor product from recognized events and apply to generic events
#for example after the first vpxd event sshd will utilize vps "vmware_vsphere_nix_syslog" rather than "nix_syslog"
SC4S_USE_VPS_CACHE=yes

Manual Parser Configuration¶

#/opt/sc4s/local/config/app-parsers/app-vps-vmware_vsphere.conf
#File name provided is a suggestion it must be globally unique

application app-vps-test-vmware_vsphere[sc4s-vps] {
 filter {      
        #netmask(169.254.100.1/24)
        #host("-esx-")
    }; 
    parser { 
        p_set_netsource_fields(
            vendor('vmware')
            product('vsphere')
        ); 
    };   
};