Managing and monitoring ESXi devices

SECURITY  At least View permission for Sites > Sites. Refer to Permissions.

NAVIGATION  Devices > All > Add Device > enter a Managed site name > select a Managed site > ESXi Host

NAVIGATION  Sites > All Sites > click the name of a Managed site > Add Device > ESXi Host

About VMware ESXi

VMware ESXi (also known as VMware vSphere Hypervisor) is a purpose-built hypervisor operating system that runs on bare metal and incorporates VMware’s virtualization technologies. ESXi can be configured to manage virtual machines (VMs) that run within the ESXi core and that are monitored by it. Virtual machines running on an ESXi server will be allocated a share of the resources of the host system. Also see A note on Subscription.

The ESXi hypervisor operating system does not permit application installation per se, making installation of the Datto RMM Agent impossible. Servers running ESXi must therefore be managed as network devices, facilitating the use of Network Nodes for device discovery, monitoring, and management.

The following ESXi builds are supported:

  • 4.1
  • 5.0
  • 5.1
  • 5.5
  • 6.0
  • 6.5
  • 6.7
  • 7.0
  • 8.0

Please note that ESXi 6.5 and later disable CIM access by default. Therefore, Datto RMM will report CIM authentication errors in the ESXi device summary. Solve this as follows:

  1. Enable the SSH service on the ESXi device.
  2. Connect to the ESXi device via SSH (for example, using Putty).
  3. Perform the following command first:
    4. esxcli system wbem set --enable true
  4. Next, perform the following command:
    5. /etc/init.d/sfcbd-watchdog start

Consecutively performing these commands permits the “sfcbd-watchdog” service to start with WBEM (another term for CIM) enabled, permitting the device to broadcast CIM data to the Network Node. Only by performing these steps will your ESXi hypervisor report CPU Socket and RAM information correctly.

These steps also permit ESXi servers to access information pertaining to device serial codes, which may not be audited otherwise.

The ESXi account must be the root user account.

Network Node requirements for ESXi monitoring:

  • The Network Node device performing ESXi monitoring can run on a guest machine on the ESXi host. Please note that the downside of monitoring from a guest is that all monitoring stops when the host goes down.
  • ESXi monitoring is supported across subnets. The Network Node device does not have to be on the same subnet as the ESXi device, but it must be on the same network to be reachable.

We highly recommend some background reading on VMware vSphere Hypervisor if you are not familiar with the concepts, terminology, and technology around ESXi and virtualization. For information, refer to this VMware article.

"Subscription" is an industry-standard term used to refer to the maximum potential capacity occupation of all virtual machines within an ESXi host.

VMs have a maximum size they can expand to but, by default, are provisioned to only occupy the storage they are actively using on the host. For example, a VM that has a maximum size of 10 GB but is only using 2 GB will be 2 GB in size.

Potentially, a host's data can become "oversubscribed" (that is, the host's Subscription shows more than 100%) because the sum of occupied space with all VMs at capacity would exceed the host's storage limit. It is, therefore, recommended to monitor the occupied disk space of the VMs and the available space in the ESXi host to avoid "oversubscription."

How to...

To be able to monitor your ESXi devices, you need to add them as Managed devices to one of your Managed sites.

You can have one of your fully managed Network Node devices scan the network for you to discover ESXi devices. The Network Node device will check for devices listening on port 902, and if a device responds, it will be listed as an ESXi device in the discovered devices list. For further information on device discovery, refer to Network Discovery.

You can also add your ESXi devices as Managed devices manually by following these steps:

  1. Follow either of the navigation paths described in Security and navigation.

    2. NOTE  For information about manually enrolling other types of devices, refer to Adding a device.

  2. In the Details section, fill in the following fields:
    3. Field Description
    Internal IP Enter the IP address of the device.
    Assigned Network Node Select a Network Node device that will monitor the device. For more information about Network Nodes, refer to the Network Node and Assigned Network Node fields in the Summary card.
    Hostname Enter a name for the device.
    Description Enter a description for the device.
  3. In the Credentials section, select one of the following options for the ESXi credentials:
    •  Existing ESXi Credentials: Choose this option if you have ESXi credentials stored at the global or site level. For information on how to store ESXi credentials, refer to ESXi credentials.
      From the list of options in the drop-down menu, you can choose any existing global ESXi credential or any existing site-level ESXi credential.
    •  New ESXi Credentials: If you need to create new ESXi credentials, choose this option and enter the ESXi credentials of the device in the fields. For information on what to enter, refer to Credentials and ESXi credentials.
  4. Click Save. The ESXi device is now added as a Managed device to your account.

Once an ESXi device has been enrolled, you can start monitoring it. ESXi monitoring is performed through a Network Node. For information on requirements, refer to Requirements.

The following ESXi monitor types are available:

  • ESXi Data Store monitor
  • ESXi Disk Health monitor
  • ESXi Fan monitor
  • ESXi PSU monitor
  • ESXi Temperature monitor

You can also apply the following non-ESXi-specific monitor:

  • Online Status monitor

For more information, refer to Monitors.

For information on how to create an ESXi policy, refer to ESXi policy.