You can often obtain valuable troubleshooting information by looking at the logs provided by the various services and agents that your implementation is using.

Most logs are located in C:\ProgramData\VMware\vCenterServer\Logs\<service_name> for Windows deployments or /var/log/vmware/<service_name> for Linux deployments. Common logs are available in all implementations. Other logs are unique to certain deployment options (Management Node or Platform Services Controller).

Common Logs

The following logs are common to all deployments on Windows or Linux.

Table 1. Common Log Directories
Log Directory Description
applmgmt VMware Appliance Management Service
cloudvm Logs for allotment and distribution of resources between services
cm VMware Component Manager
firstboot Location where first boot logs are stored
rhttpproxy Reverse Web Proxy
sca VMware Service Control Agent
statsmonitor Vmware Appliance Monitoring Service (Linux only)
vapi VMware vAPI Endpoint
vmaffd VMware Authentication Framework daemon
vmdird VMware Directory Service daemon
vmon VMware Service Lifecycle Manager

Management Node Logs

The following logs are available if a management node deployment is chosen.

Table 2. Management Node Log Directories
Log Directory Description
autodeploy VMware vSphere Auto Deploy Waiter
content-library VMware Content Library Service
eam VMware ESX Agent Manager
invsvc VMware Inventory Service
mbcs VMware Message Bus Config Service
netdump VMware vSphere ESXi Dump Collector
perfcharts VMware Performance Charts
vmcam VMware vSphere Authentication Proxy
vmdird VMware Directory Service daemon
vmsyslog collector vSphere Syslog Collector (Windows only)
vmware-sps VMware vSphere Profile-Driven Storage Service
vmware-vpx VMware VirtualCenter Server
vpostgres vFabric Postgres database service
mbcs VMware Message Bus Config Service
vsphere-client VMware vSphere Web Client
vcha VMware High Availability Service (Linux only)

Platform Services Controller Logs

You can examine the following logs if a Platform Services Controller node deployment is chosen.

Table 3. Platform Services Controller Node Log Directories
Log Directory Description
cis-license VMware Licensing Service
sso VMware Secure Token Service
vmcad VMware Certificate Authority daemon
vmdird VMware Directory Service

For Platform Services Controller node deployments, additional runtime logs are located at C:\ProgramData\VMware\CIS\runtime\VMwareSTSService\logs.