Performance Charts must generate log records for system startup and shutdown.

Logging must be started as soon as possible when a service starts and when a service is stopped. Many forms of suspicious actions can be detected by analyzing logs for unexpected service starts and stops. Also, by starting to log immediately after a service starts, it becomes more difficult for suspicious activity to go unlogged.

On the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA), the "vmware-vmon" service starts up the Java virtual machines (JVMs) for various vCenter processes, including Performance Charts, and the individual json config files control the early JVM logging. Ensuring these json files are configured correctly enables early Java "stdout" and "stderr" logging.

Satisfies: SRG-APP-000089-WSR-000047, SRG-APP-000092-WSR-000055

At the command prompt, run the following command:

# grep StreamRedirectFile /etc/vmware/vmware-vmon/svcCfgfiles/perfcharts.json

Expected result:

"StreamRedirectFile" : "%VMWARE_LOG_DIR%/vmware/perfcharts/vmware-perfcharts-runtime.log",

If the output does not match the expected result, this is a finding.

Navigate to and open:

/etc/vmware/vmware-vmon/svcCfgfiles/perfcharts.json

Below the last line of the "PreStartCommandArg" block, add the following line:

"StreamRedirectFile" : "%VMWARE_LOG_DIR%/vmware/perfcharts/vmware-perfcharts-runtime.log",

Restart the appliance for changes to take effect.