eG Administration 
 

AGENT VM - LOGS

eG remote agents that perform ‘In-N-Out’ monitoring of hypervisors (such as VMware vSphere/ESX servers, Citrix XenServers, etc.) and the VMs configured on them capture critical VM-related statistics and errors that occur when monitoring the VMs to a file named eg_vm.ini; this file is automatically created on the agent host. When troubleshooting the failure of the remote agent to obtain the ‘inside view’ of VMs, this file serves as the primary source of problem information to the administrator, as it provides effective pointers to the root-cause of such failures. Typically, administrators have to physically login to the agent host to view the contents of the eg_vm.ini file. Where multiple hypervisors are being monitored - each with a dedicated remote agent - administrators will have to access the eg_vm.ini file of each agent to initiate investigations. To save administrators the time and trouble involved in this exercise, the eG administrative console now embeds a comprehensive interface, which provides a hypervisor-independent view of the following:

  • The physical servers managed by a chosen remote agent;
  • The details of VMs running on each physical server;
  • The powered-on state of every VM;
  • Whether the ‘inside view’ tests failed on any VM, and if so, the reason for the same

In other words, the dedicated interface allows administrators a sneak peek at the contents of the eg_vm.ini file for a chosen remote agent.

To access this interface, do the following:

  1. Click on the icon available in the Admin tab, then select the Remote Agent option from the Agents tile. Now click on the VM Statistics option in the Remote Agent Configuration page. Then the Agent VM Logs page appears.

  2. Select a remote agent from the Agent list.

  3. Upon selecting a remote agent, the contents of the eg_vm.ini file associated with that agent will then be displayed.

  4. To enable the eG agent to obtain the ‘inside view’ of a VM, you typically configure the agent with the credentials of a user with domain administrator rights to that VM. If multiple VMs spanning many domains are to be monitored, then, you can configure the eG agent with the credentials of multiple users. The eG agent then attempts to login to each VM using each of the configured credentials, determines which credentials are valid for which VM, and then logs into each VM using valid credentials to obtain the ‘inside view’ statistics. In the event of the failure of the ‘inside view’ of a VM, you can use the first section of this page to figure out which Valid user credentials were ultimately used by the remote agent for connecting to that VM, and determine whether/not that user posesses the required privileges for ‘inside view’ monitoring.

  5. The Physical Servers Monitored and their VMS section lists all the Physical servers managed by the chosen remote agent, and displays the total number of VMs registered with each server and the count of VMs that are in a powered-on state. Using this section, you can quickly figure out how many VMs on a physical server are currently powered-off. To know which are the powered-off VMs, click on a Physical server here; this will lead you to a page displaying the VM Details section of the chosen physical server.

  6. The VM Details section lists all the VMs that have been configured on the chosen physical server, the powered-on state of each VM, and the status of the VM Tools utility of that VM. The absence of VM Tools is one of the most common causes for the failure of the ‘inside view’ tests on a VM. This section reveals those VMs on which the VM Tools has not been deployed yet or is not running. Click on the Back button at the right, top corner of this section to return to the previous page.

  7. The final section of Agent VM - Logs page reveals the VMS for which Inside View is not working. Whenever ‘inside view’ tests fail on a VM, you can use this section to identify the physical server on which that VM is running, the IP address and the operating system of the VM, and the reason why the ‘inside view’ tests failed on that VM. This information enables administrators to easily troubleshoot the failure.

  8. At any given point in time, you can click the Refresh icon adjacent to the Agent list to refresh this page and ensure that the details displayed therein are up to date!