The vCenter UI service must initiate session logging upon startup.

Logging must be started as soon as possible when a service starts and as late as possible 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.

At the command prompt, run the following command:

# grep StreamRedirectFile /etc/vmware/vmware-vmon/svcCfgfiles/vsphere-ui.json

Expected output:

"StreamRedirectFile" : "%VMWARE_LOG_DIR%/vmware/vsphere-ui/logs/vsphere-ui-runtime.log",

If no log file is specified for the "StreamRedirectFile" setting, this is a finding.

Navigate to and open:

/etc/vmware/vmware-vmon/svcCfgfiles/vsphere-ui.json

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

"StreamRedirectFile" : "%VMWARE_LOG_DIR%/vmware/vsphere-ui/logs/vsphere-ui-runtime.log",

Restart the service with the following command:

# vmon-cli --restart vsphere-ui