Generating Logs

If you are connected to ESXi by SSH, you can use the
tail
command to explicitly create a log file that captures detail about actions that follow. For example, you can use the vSphere Client to create a new virtual machine and then use the content from the log as a model for how to create your own code.
To start the logging process and capture content to a file, use the following steps.
  1. Navigate to the location of the
    hostd.log
    file:
    cd /var/log/vmware
  2. Run the
    tail
    command, passing a filename in which to capture output:
    tail -f hostd.log > yourfilenamehere
  3. Use the vSphere Client to perform whatever action you are having difficulty modeling in your own code. For example, create a new virtual machine and stop the
    tail
    process with Ctrl-C when the operation completes.
The file contains the SOAP message content and other log messages sent and received by
hostd
during the execution.