Change location of VMware ESXi System Logs to local or remote datastore

March 07, 2016

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![Change location of VMware ESXi System Logs to local or remote datastore - logo][1]

Today I would like to show you how to change or setup location of VMware ESXi System Logs to local or remote datastore.

Quite recently I reinstalled my Home Lab and I faced following notification in vSphere Web Client.

![Change location of VMware ESXi System Logs to local or remote datastore - 1][2]

First of all we should ask ourselves why do we want to do it? The answer is quite simple - in case of disaster or troubleshooting we need access to ESXi logs. If you don’t store system logs at all it will be not possible to investigate issue without logs. In case you want, System Logs can be moved away from local to remote (FC, iSCSI or NFS) datastore.

Changing location of VMware ESXi System Logs to local datastore

Login to vSphere Web Client.
Go to Manage \ Settings \ Advanced System Settings. In search field type Syslog.global.logDir and hit Enter. ![Change location of VMware ESXi System Logs to local or remote datastore - 2][3]
Double click on Syslog.global.logDir and enter name of the datastore where you want to store logs in format [datastore_name]folder. In my case it looks like that: [ESXi01-local]logs. After you commit change alert on ESXi disappears. ![Change location of VMware ESXi System Logs to local or remote datastore - 2][3]
Browse datastore where we store ESXi logs to check if settings are applied correctly. ![Change location of VMware ESXi System Logs to local or remote datastore - 3][4]

As you see it was quite easy and we achieved our goal to store ESXi logs on datastore. [1]: /images/uploads/2016/03/change-location-of-vmware-esxi-system-logs-to-local-or-remote-datastore-logo-1.webp [2]: /images/uploads/2016/03/change-location-of-vmware-esxi-system-logs-to-local-or-remote-datastore-1.webp [3]: /images/uploads/2016/03/change-location-of-vmware-esxi-system-logs-to-local-or-remote-datastore-2.webp [4]: /images/uploads/2016/03/change-location-of-vmware-esxi-system-logs-to-local-or-remote-datastore-3.webp [5]: /images/uploads/2016/03/change-location-of-vmware-esxi-system-logs-to-local-or-remote-datastore-4.webp

With over 16 years in the IT industry, I am a seasoned and innovative IT professional with a track record of success. Drawing from my extensive work experience in large and complex corporate environments, I bring knowledge to help customers and businesses achieve their goals with precision, professionalism, and cost-effectiveness. leading vendor certifications have recognized my expertise from AWS, Alibaba Cloud, Google Cloud, VMware, and Microsoft. I am dedicated to contributing to the IT community, as evidenced by my VMware vExpert awards from 2014-2023, including vExpert Pro 2018-2023, vExpert Cloud Provider 2022, and VMware vExpert NSX 2017 Award.