Using the Workbench Log Browser GUI

The vLogBrowser pane displays formatted log entries. Each log entry is formatted into columns. For VMkernel logs, the column headers are: #, Date, CPU, World ID, and Entry. For hostd and other logs the column headers are: #, Date, Source and Entry (log text).

In the log browser, you can perform the following tasks:

■	Double-clicking an entry causes a dialog box to open, displaying other text associated with the log entry. Click OK when you are ready to dismiss the dialog box.

■	Filter for specific keywords by typing the keyword into the unlabeled text box on the top left of the Workbench Log Browser view and clicking Filter. The button is a toggle. If you wish to return to the unfiltered view of the log, click Unfilter.

■	Before clicking Filter, if you want to see the log entries immediately surrounding the entry with the keyword, select the number of surrounding entries to display from the numerical drop-down menu.

■	Sort the log entries by any column by clicking the column header once to sort in ascending order and click again to sort in descending order. Restore the original order by clicking the number (“#”) column header to get ascending order.

■	Synchronize log entries in multiple log browsers by a specific timestamp. Select the Sync check box in each log browser that you want synchronized. Select a time stamped entry in one of the browsers. The other log browsers have the log entry closest to that timestamp selected.

■	Click the <log_file_name.logx> tab at the bottom of the vLogBrowser pane to see the .logx configuration file (XML formatted).

You can customize this log view by editing the XML in the .logx file. To see the changes, save, close and reload the file.

■	Various actions are available in the right-click menu, from the task bar icons, or from the vLogBrowser menu in the VMware Workbench menu bar:

a	Filter – The Keyword Filtering with a Named Filter dialog box displays.

In the Choose a Filter Source area, select one of the radio buttons: This .logx file, Filters file (and Browse for the file), or Other open .logx files (select the file from a drop-down list).

To create your own named filter, type a name in the Named Filters field or select an already existing named filter from the drop-down menu. Edit or accept the keywords for the filter in the regular expression formatting fields that follow. If you want to include lines surrounding the filtered lines, choose the number to include in the Include # Surrounding Lines selector.

To save your new named filter or edited filter, click Save.

To delete the filter in the Named Filters field, click Delete Filter. To clear the regular expressions form, click Clear Form.

To save the new or edited Named Filter and filter the .logx file, click Save and Filter. To unfilter the .logx file and clear the regular expression form, click Unfilter and Clear Form.

b

Find – The Find by keyword dialog box displays. Enter the keyword to search for in the Keyword text box. Click Find All to see all entries in the log browser containing the keyword selected. Click Hide to close the dialog box. Click Find next to find the next instance of the keyword in the log browser.

c	Find Next – When selected, takes you to the next entry containing the keyword you searched for previously. If you haven’t selected keyword, it opens the Find by keyword dialog box.

d	Find or Adjust Date– The Find by Timestamp or Adjust All Timestamps dialog box displays.

To find a specific timestamp, type the desired timestamp in the Date Input field and click Find to go to the first entry in the log with that timestamp.

Or you can construct the timestamp using the calendar and clock controls in the dialog box. Changes you make using the calendar controls are reflected in the timestamp shown in the Date Input field. For example, changing the month to February changes the timestamp month to 02. For the time portion of the timestamp, highlight a section of the clock display and click the buttons on the right to increment or decrement the number. For example, highlight the hour, and click the bottom button to decrement the hour number.

To adjust all of the timestamps in the log, set the desired timestamp in the Date Input field, and click Adjust. You can revert to the original timestamp by clicking Clear Adjustment.

e	Highlight – The Highlight a keyword dialog box displays. Type in the keyword to highlight and click Highlight. All instances of the keyword in the log are highlighted. Click Unhighlight to turn off the highlighting. Click Hide to close the dialog box.

To highlight keywords using the Highlight button on the Workbench Log Browser interface, type in a keyword in the unlabeled text box on the right side of the Workbench Log Browser view and click Highlight. The button is a toggle. If you wish to remove highlighting of the keyword, click Unhighlight.

f	Copy – Copy the selected entry or entries to the clipboard. You can open a text editor and paste the entries into a document.

g	Refresh – If additional log entries have been added to the log since you started analyzing it, you can select Refresh from the menu to bring those additional entries into the view. This works for logs on the local file system as well as logs from the ESXi hosts you are connected to.

h	View Log Info – A pop-up window displays the list of logs and their locations that you currently have loaded in this Workbench Log Browser project.

i

Add Log Files – Add local logs files to an existing Workbench Log Browser project (.logx file). The Add local log files to table dialog box displays. Browse to the log directory and select one or more logs to add. Click Add to add the files to the .logx file. The log display refreshes to include the new entries.