You will occasionally need vscsiStats to deepen your understanding of an application’s storage profile. This tool is provided with ESX classic but requires configuration and installation for ESXi environments. VMware is planning to add vscsiStats counters to the vSphere Client UI in a future version but until then you will have to perform the following to enable vscsiStats on ESXi.
- Boot ESXi in tech support mode. See KB article 1003677 for instructions.
- Download the right version of vscsiStats using the table below.
- Install the right vscsiStats binary using a secure copy tool such as WinSCP or scp.
I will provide vscsiStats binaries as requested. If you do not see the version of vscsiStats that matches your ESXi build, please provide in this article’s comments your build number (not release number!) and I will add it version of vscsiStats to the repository.
Currently Posted vscsiStats Binaries
Again, comment if yours is not listed!
- Build 163429, ESX 3.5.4
- Build 164009, ESX 4.0.0
- Build 171294, ESX 4.0.0 (same bits at 164009)
- Build 176894, ESX 3.5, patch 16
- Build 184236, ESX 3.5, patch 17
- Build 199239, ESX 3.5, patch 18
- Build 207095, ESX 3.5.5
- Build 208167, ESX 4.0.1
- Build 219382, ESX 4.0, patch 3
If these links are broken, comment below. This directory was kindly setup for me on our public FTP share. It has an extended life but about twice a year will be swept and cleaned out. If that happens let me know and I will upload again.
Hey Scott, I’m getting a 403 Forbidden error on the FTP site right now.
Comment by Andrew Storrs — October 21, 2009 @ 11:05 pm
thats a plus 1 on the error on the FTP site.
Comment by Tom Howarth — October 22, 2009 @ 12:46 am
Sorry, guys! I did not realize that the directory set up for me does not allow anonymous browsing.
I have included links to the binaries in the article.
Comment by Scott — October 22, 2009 @ 9:26 am
ESXi build 184236
Comment by Andrew Storrs — October 22, 2009 @ 2:49 pm
Andrew: done.
Comment by Scott — October 22, 2009 @ 3:13 pm
Hi Scott, A bit off the topic. Just a quick note to say that your talk at the VMware conference downunder was by FAR the most engaging and informative. If only you could have had a whole day. I have a couple of questions regarding vSphere performance. I am in the airport ATT so I will leave them to another day.
Well Done.
Comment by Austin — October 28, 2009 @ 3:09 pm
Hi Scott! Can I get vscsiStats for
ESXi, 3.5.0, 176894 ?
Comment by Nik — November 3, 2009 @ 12:40 pm
Nik,
Done. Sorry it took a while. I have been traveling and less connected of late.
Scott
Comment by Scott — November 4, 2009 @ 6:24 pm
ESX 3i, 3.5.0, 199239
Thanks
Comment by Andrew Storrs — December 9, 2009 @ 5:39 pm
Done.
Comment by Scott — December 9, 2009 @ 6:39 pm
Scott you rule.
I might as well ask for Update 5’s version as well.
Comment by Andrew Storrs — December 9, 2009 @ 8:40 pm
Build number?
Comment by Scott — December 10, 2009 @ 11:29 am
Sorry.
207095
Comment by Andrew Storrs — December 10, 2009 @ 11:31 am
Just add vscsiStats for 207095. Let me know if this one does anything strange. There is some weirdness in our build records for this release. Sorry for the delay while I worked around this problem.
Comment by Scott — December 18, 2009 @ 2:01 pm
May I ask for ESXi 4U1? Build-Number 208167
Thanks in advance,
Thorsten
Comment by Thorsten — December 17, 2009 @ 7:08 am
Updated to include vscsiStats for 208167.
Comment by Scott — December 18, 2009 @ 2:00 pm
Any thoughts on whether having sshd running and vscsiStats installed
but not running is acceptable in a production ESXi environment? Any stability issue there we should watch out for?
More interesting question is when actually running vscsiStats (in either ESX or ESXi). The CPU impact does not look too bad and we have not observed any stability issues so far. What is your experience? Is it something that we can use in a production network to troubleshoot occasional NFS bottlenecks in a live network? The problem is that bottlenecks only arise during peak usage hours, and then its interesting to collect which VM is generating how much of the traffic at that time. Collecting the traffic shares at non peak time safer but not as useful.
Anindo
Comment by Anindo Banerjea — December 17, 2009 @ 7:50 pm
The SSH console (which we call BusyBox) was initially thought to be anathema to the spirit of ESXi. So, when it was added we put in those terrifying warnings to keep people away from it.
As time has progressed, we developed more comfort with the BusyBox and there is talk (nothing on the roadmap yet) of making it official in ESXi.
In short, avoid the BusyBox when possible. Only use it when absolutely necessary. And when you are using it, do not fear it.
As for vscsiStats, we know its overhead is low (estimated at 2.5% of a CPU) and that it self-terminates after 30 minutes. It should not interfere with VM execution during collection.
Comment by Scott — December 18, 2009 @ 2:50 pm
Thanks. We are trying this out in a limited way and it seems to work well. In the meantime, we heard that vmware is going to put NFS statistics into the SOAP API in the 4.1 beta. Do you know if this is true and if so when that is coming out? Also would that be a superset of the vscsiStat functionality or would some things (histograms) still be best done through vscsiStats?
Comment by Anindo Banerjea — January 12, 2010 @ 5:09 pm
Do you have vscsiStats for ESXi 4 build 219382?
Comment by shaka411 — February 17, 2010 @ 9:29 am
Just added.
Comment by Scott — February 18, 2010 @ 4:55 pm
Do you have binaries for ESXi 4.0.0 builds 171294 and 208167
Thanks,
David
Comment by David — February 22, 2010 @ 11:53 am
I just added 171294. 208167 is already present.
Comment by Scott — February 22, 2010 @ 5:30 pm
Thanks ! Since 208167 was for 4.0.1 I thought it wasn’t the same build.. I should have read more carefully as you did say to go by build number and not release number, sorry
Comment by David — February 23, 2010 @ 7:35 am
Well, I should tell you that publicly held companies are not allowed to provide specific details on features of unreleased products. As a result, you are going to find my answer unfulfilling. That being said…
We have demonstrated improved NFS performance diagnostic capabilities in our development versions of vSphere. But I cannot say the specific version that will include those features or when it will be available.
Comment by Scott — January 12, 2010 @ 5:49 pm
I appreciate your providing as much information as you can. Any input on how I can get on the beta program for this unspecified version that will come out at an unspecified tim
.
Comment by Anindo Banerjea — January 12, 2010 @ 6:31 pm
The beta program is invitation only. Talk to your account team and they can ask for an invite for you.
Comment by Scott — January 13, 2010 @ 11:16 am