If virtual machines on an ESXi host are not being protected by policy configured Endpoint Security solution or if there are alarms related to Endpoint Security Service VM and host agent communication then the NSX Guest Introspection Platform Host Agent(MUX) may have issues that need to be analysed. This section describes log format, log location for the Host Agent (MUX) and how to ensure the Host Agent (MUX) service is running on the ESXi host.

Log Path and Sample Message

MUX Log path
/var/log/syslog

NSX Guest Introspection Platform host agent (MUX) messages follow the format of <timestamp>ContextMUX<[ThreadID]>: <message>

For example: 
2022-08-25T11:42:02Z ContextMux[54425342]: [INFO] (EPSEC) [54425342] NSX Context Multiplexor 17883598. [3.1.2.0.0]
2022-08-25T11:42:02Z ContextMux[54425342]: [INFO] (EPSEC) [54425342] VMkernel localhost 6.7.0 #1 SMP Release build-13006603 Mar 26 2019 13:38:24 x86_64
2022-08-25T11:42:02Z ContextMux[54425342]: [WARNING] (EPSEC) [54425345] Not sending events. MuxHandler has not been registered.
In the above example
  • [ERROR] is the type of message. Other types can be [DEBUG], [INFO]
  • (EPSEC) represents that the messages are specific to Endpoint Security

Enabling and Viewing Log Files

To change log levels, perform these steps on the ESXi host command shell:
  1. Set the NSX Guest Introspection Platform host agent (MUX) logging level.

    ~ # nsxcli -c set service nsx-context-mux logging-level debug

    off - This is intended to turn off logging

    fatal - Designates very severe events that may cause application to abort

    error - Designates error events that may allow application to continue running

    warn - Designates potentially harmful situations

    info - Designates coarse-grained informational messages

    debug - Designates fine-grained informational messages for debugging purposes

    trace - Designates verbose log messages

  2. View the NSX Guest Introspection Platform host agent (MUX) log messages in the /var/log/syslog.log file on the ESXi host. Check that the entries corresponding to the global solutions, solution ID, and port number are specified correctly.

  3. The default logging option for NSX Guest Introspection Platform is info and can be raised to debug to gather more information.

  4. To get a better idea of what the NSX Guest Introspection Platform is doing or check the communication status, you can check the logs on the ESXi host. NSX Guest Introspection Platform logs are written to the host /var/log/syslog file. This is also included in the ESXi host support logs.

  5. If you run into issues with the VIB installation, check the /var/log/esxupdate.log file on the ESXi host. This log provides accurate information to know the reason the package was not successfully installed. This is a common issue for NSX Guest Introspection Platform installation issues.

For more details, refer to NSX Guest Introspection Platform Host Agent (MUX) Logs.