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Use vm-support to stop stalled Virtual Machines

July 30th, 2009

In some rare cases you can notice resource allocated to virtual machines that don’t appear to be running.

esxtop can help you find this out.

Using vm-support you can identify the world id of the virtual machine and then using the same command you can generate some support logs and abort the virtual machine.

/vmfs/volumes/480374a8-b7f42bb2-139f-001e4f2295e5 # esxtop

3:05:53pm up 24 days 6:31, 238 worlds; CPU load average: 0.17, 0.18, 0.19
PCPU(%): 21.54, 23.21, 21.60, 24.69, 32.15, 32.59, 29.51, 30.21 ; used total: 26.94

ID GID NAME NWLD %USED %RUN %SYS %WAIT %RDY %IDLE %OVRLP %CSTP %MLMTD
1 1 idle 8 590.34 596.34 0.00 0.00 209.74 0.00 0.60 0.00 0.00
2 2 system 6 32.91 32.67 0.70 561.94 9.95 0.00 0.46 0.00 0.00
6 6 helper 23 0.03 0.03 0.00 2300.00 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
7 7 drivers 16 0.14 0.14 0.00 1600.00 0.32 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
14 14 init.1068 1 0.00 0.00 0.00 100.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
106 106 busybox.1154 1 41.87 41.97 0.00 57.74 1.01 0.00 0.13 0.00 0.00
108 108 vmklogger.1156 1 0.00 0.00 0.00 100.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
255 255 busybox.1305 1 0.00 0.00 0.00 100.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
261 261 busybox.1311 1 0.00 0.00 0.00 100.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
270 270 sh.1320 1 0.00 0.00 0.00 100.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
280 280 hostd.1330 19 24.15 24.34 0.00 1886.26 3.41 0.00 0.32 0.00 0.00
314 314 slpd.1389 1 0.00 0.00 0.00 100.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
355 355 sfcbd.1431 1 0.00 0.00 0.00 100.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
358 358 sfcbd.1434 1 0.00 0.00 0.00 100.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
359 359 sfcbd.1435 1 0.00 0.00 0.00 100.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
409 409 sh.1485 1 0.00 0.00 0.00 100.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
419 419 openwsmand.1495 4 0.01 0.01 0.00 400.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
429 429 sh.1508 1 0.00 0.00 0.00 100.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
466 466 sh.1545 1 0.00 0.00 0.00 100.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
480 480 vpxa.1559 22 0.04 0.04 0.00 2200.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
484 484 sfcbd.1563 2 0.00 0.00 0.00 200.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
500 500 dcui.1587 1 0.00 0.00 0.00 100.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
508 508 sfcbd.1596 2 0.00 0.00 0.00 200.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
510 510 sfcbd.1603 2 0.00 0.00 0.00 200.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
511 511 sfcbd.1619 3 0.00 0.00 0.00 300.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
527 527 sfcbd.1722 2 0.00 0.00 0.00 200.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
528 528 sfcbd.1723 3 0.00 0.00 0.00 300.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
1557 1557 sfcbd.3374 5 0.01 0.01 0.00 500.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
1761 1761 sfcbd.3657 5 0.00 0.00 0.00 500.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
5197 5197 W2K3_x64_TEST1 8 5.35 5.40 0.02 799.02 1.19 187.14 0.18 0.20 0.00

I would like to stop the machine W2K3_x64_TEST1

/vmfs/volumes/480374a8-b7f42bb2-139f-001e4f2295e5 # vm-support -x

VMware ESX Server Support Script 1.29

Available worlds to debug:

vmid=9049 W2K3_x64_TEST1

Please mind the case of the command since the next command looks similar but uses upper case X

/vmfs/volumes/480374a8-b7f42bb2-139f-001e4f2295e5 # vm-support -X 9049

VMware ESX Server Support Script 1.29

Preparing files: |

Can I include a screenshot of the VM 9049? [y/n]:

If you select “y” the tool will ask you few questions and will generate and zip some trace files in the /var/tmp folder for later debugging.
In addition to this it will kill all processes of the world ID you have entered.

You might want to move the tgz file from the /var/tmp to free space later on.

HTH,

St0ma

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