VCSA Log Insight Agent Install & Configuration

If you don’t already have Log Insight deployed in your environment, stop reading this immediately and go deploy it! I’ll be here when you get back.

A 25 OSI pack is even included with your vCenter license, see this FAQ. Log Insight is a simple install, and I won’t cover that here. As there is already a ton of great content online. e.g. Check out this post by VirtuBytes. What I will cover is how to deploy the Log Insight agent on vCenter Server Appliance(VCSA). VCSA is now THE defacto standard platform for vCenter. All of my customers are running in production with great success.

Log Insight includes the vSphere Content Pack OOTB, however to populate dashboards that require vCenter related logs(e.g. DRS) we need to install the Log Insight agent.

BEFORE. You can see I have no DRS related information in the vSphere – DRS Dashboard

Before we begin, quick note on my lab. I’m running vSphere 6.5U1 and Log Insight v4.5

Also ensure you have the necessary firewall ports open. See the Ports Required for Sources Sending Data section of the official documentation

Login to Log Insight
In the top right click on the 3 bar ‘burger icon’ and select Administration
In the left menu under Management, click Agents
In the right pane, scroll down until you see Download Log Agent Version 4.5.0, and click the link to download
Starting vSphere v6.5, the VCSA is running on VMware’s own Photon OS. The agent installation we need is Linux RPM. See the Download Agent Installation Files section of the official documentation
I’m going to use Secure Copy to transfer the RPM to the VCSA. We will need to enable SSH if it is not already. Connect to https://VCSA-FQDN:5480 and login as root
In the Navigator pane, select Access then Edit
Enable SSH Login and Bash Shell then click OK
Next upload the RPM to the VCSA. I’m using pscp in my lab, but if you prefer a UI I’d recommend WinSCP.
Here is the pscp command to copy the RPM to /tmp on the VCSA
```
pscp.exe "e:\Operations\Log Insight 4.5\VMware-Log-Insight-Agent-4.5.0-5626690.noarch_192.168.110.24.rpm" root@vcsa-01a.corp.local:/tmp
```
Launch a SSH session to the VCSA and login as root. I’m using putty
```
putty root@vcsa-01a.corp.local
```
Type shell to launch a BASH shell
I upload the RPM to /tmp so i need to type cd /tmp
Next type the following to install the agent
```
rpm -i VMware-Log-Insight-Agent-4.5.0-5626690.noarch_192.168.110.24.rpm
```
Note, there is no need to specify the Log Insight server FQDN as this is included by default. You can verify this by typing the following if you wish
```
grep -A1 server /etc/liagent.ini
```
Lets go back to Log Insight
We should still be in the Agent section, if not follow steps 2 & 3 above
Click the refresh button, and you should now see your VCSA listed
The final thing we need to do is associate the appropriate template with the agent. Think of this like a profile, we need to tell Log Insight what log files to parse. e.g. /var/log/vmware/vpxd/*.log. The OOTB vSphere Content Pack includes the necessary templates for vCenter. When you install additional content packs, e.g. vRealize Automation this will include the necessary templates
Click the down arrow next to All Agents, and scroll down and select vSphere 6.0 – vCenter (Linux) Complete. Yes I know I’m using v6.5, but this will suffice until the templates are updated
.
Scroll down and click Copy Template
Give the group a name and click Copy
Need to apply a filter to apply the group, in my case I’m going to specify the hostname
Scroll down to the bottom and click Save New Group
We need to verify the vSphere DRS dashboard is now being populated. In my lab I loaded up one host with a bunch of VM’s so DRS would kick in and vMotion some VM’s
Click Dashboards

then scroll down until you see VMware – vSphere in the left pane, expand this and click on vSphere – DRS
Voila! Should now see this dashboard being populated.