Collect Logs in Horizon Console

You can generate and manage log collection tasks, and download log bundles for Connection Server, desktop pools, and farms in Horizon Console.

Prerequisites

You must have log collection privileges to collect logs. In Horizon Console, navigate to Settings > Administrators > Role Privileges > Add Role. Create a custom role with the Collection Operation Logs privilege, and add this role to the administrator's permissions.

With full administrative privileges, you can see and manage all log collection task operations, which include canceling log creation requests and deleting other users' completed log collection tasks.

Administrators without full privileges can see, manage, and cancel only the tasks they initiated.

Procedure

1. In Horizon Console, navigate to Troubleshooting > Log Collection.
2. Specify the feature and level of information to collect in the log.

   If you do not specify a level, the log uses the default level listed in Using DCT to Collect Logs for Remote Desktop Features and Components. If you do not specify an agent feature, then the log uses the connection server default (DEBUG).

   1. Select the Levels tab, select the component type and pool if applicable, and click Search. Component types include:
      • Connection Server: select a Connection Server instance.
      • Agent: select a desktop pool from the current pod.
      • Agent RDS: select a farm from the current pod.

      Agent and Agent RDS levels are supported for Horizon Agent for Windows and Horizon Agent for Linux. For supported Linux distributions, see VMware Knowledge Base (KB) article 88979. For information about limitations of this functionality for Horizon Agent for Linux, see VMware Knowledge Base (KB) article 88960.

      Note: You can specify feature-specific log levels only for agent components. For connection server, the specified log level applies to all features.
   2. Select a component from the search results, and then select the feature and level of information to collect in the log for that component.

      Horizon supports the following log levels, listed in order from the least detailed to the most detailed. Not all log levels may be available for every agent feature.

      • INFO
      • DEBUG
      • TRACE
      • VERBOSE
   3. Click Save and then OK to apply the changes.
3. Collect the logs.
   1. Select the Collect tab, select the component type and pool if applicable, and click Search.
      Component types include:

      • Connection Server: select a connection server.
      • Agent: select a desktop pool from the current pod.
      • Agent RDS: select a farm from the current pod.
   2. Select one or more components from the list, and click Collect.
      The Log Collection Status window lists the selected components and the log collection task status for each component. Status includes successfully queued logs and failures due to an error. You can refresh the list to see status updates.

      • Connection Server: The log collection task for a Connection Server might fail with Server busy, try again later error if that Connection Server is the owner for an Agent log collection task.
      • Agent: After the log collection task completes in the Agent, the Agent log bundles are copied to the Connection Server’s local file system.

      Note: If a log has already been requested for a specific component, that component will be deactivated to prevent duplicate log creation requests.
4. To download and manage collected logs, select the Manage tab.
   1. To download a log bundle to the user's local file system, click the link under the Download column for that log collection task.
   2. To delete a log bundle of a completed log collection task, select the log collection task and click Delete.
      The log bundle generated in the log storage directory on the local file system will be deleted. The Delete operation deletes the log collection task and the associated log bundle stored in the log storage directory (default directory: %PROGRAMDATA%/VMware/VDM/DCT) on the Connection Server’s local file system.

      Note: You must have full administrative privileges to perform this operation.
   3. To cancel a log creation task that you initiated, select the component, and click Cancel. You must cancel tasks in an error state before initiating the next task.
      The Cancel process varies per component for ongoing and completed tasks:

      Component	Ongoing Task Process	Completed Task Process
      Connection Server	The process running in the background is aborted. The intermediate files generated in the log storage location are deleted. The task is deleted. Note: If the process running in the background stops due to an error, the abort operation might fail, requiring a manual intervention to recover.	The log bundle generated in the log storage location is deleted. The task is deleted.
      Agent	Connection Server waits for the log collection to complete in the Agent. The Agent log bundle is copied to the Connection Server. The log bundle is deleted. The task is deleted.	The log bundle stored in the log storage location is deleted. The task is deleted.