VMware VirtualCenter 1.1 Support Documentation

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Working with Events

An event is any action that is of interest to VirtualCenter. Each event triggers an event message. All event messages are archived in the VirtualCenter database. View event messages from two locations:

The Events option in the navigation bar displays all events that have occurred on the VirtualCenter server.
An Events tab for any object under the Inventory option. These Events tab listings show only the events that occurred on or to the selected farm, host, or virtual machine.

The most recent events appear at the end of a scrollable list. Messages are identified by type: Information, Error, or Warning. Messages are also color coded. A shortened event message appears in the description portion of the panel. An more detailed version of a selected event message appears in the Event Details portion of the panel. Typically, the Event Detail entry indicates the host or virtual machine on which the event occurred and describes the action that occurred. The object of the event is a link to the object's individual event page.

The actions available with Events are described in the following sections:

Viewing All VirtualCenter Events

To view all VirtualCenter events: click the Events option in the navigation bar.

Viewing Selected VirtualCenter Events

Each VirtualCenter object in the inventory panel has an Events tab in the information panel. Each event that appears is an object-specific subset of all the VirtualCenter events.

To view the event messages and event detail for an object:

From the VirtualCenter client, display the inventory panel and expand the appropriate farm.
Click the Inventory option in the navigation bar. Expand the inventory as needed, and click the appropriate virtual machine.
Select the object for which you want to view events.
In the inventory panel, select a virtual machine, host, or farm, as appropriate. If you select a host, the event messages for all the virtual machines on that host are included in the Event log.
Display the Events log. Click the Events tab.
View an event detail. Click on the event.
A full text message with links to related objects appears in the Event Details box.
Link to a message object.
Click any of the blue highlighted items in the Events Details box. VirtualCenter displays the Events tab of the highlighted object.

Sorting Event Messages

Sort all lists by clicking in the column label heading. A triangle in the column head shows the sort order as ascending or descending.

To sort a list: Click on a column heading to re-sort the list by the entries in that column. The current selection does not change.

To change ascending or descending order: Click the triangle in the column heading.

To select items in a list: Click on an individual item. Use Shift-click or Ctrl-click to select multiple items.

Exporting Events

VirtualCenter provides an option for exporting your events log file.

To export the events file:

From the VirtualCenter client, open the VirtualCenter Export Events dialog box.
Select File > Export Events.
Specify the range of messages and the type of messages to export.
1. Specify a File name and location for the exported file.
2. Indicate how far back from the current date and time to select the messages to export by selecting the appropriate Time radio button.
3. Indicate the type of event message to include in the exported file by selecting the appropriate Type radio button.
4. Click OK.
  VirtualCenter makes a text file of the selected data and stores the file at the specified location. The file contains Type, Time, and Description.

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VMware VirtualCenter 1.1 Support Documentation

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