Console logging in Oracle VM Server for SPARC

A new feature in Oracle VM Server for SPARC provides logging for guest domain consoles. Console I/O - all text on the serial console - is logged for all or selected domains, including text that appears before the domain boots Solaris. Logs are stored in files under the directory /var/log/vntsd/domain. These directories are root-owned to protect them from unauthorized access.

Prerequisites

This feature requires Oracle VM Server for SPARC 3.0. The service domain providing the virtual console concentrator (vcc) service (typically the control domain) must run Oracle Solaris 10 1/13 (or equivalent patch level) or Oracle Solaris 11. The guest domain being logged can run older versions of Solaris.

Example

The following example shows an administrator logged onto the control domain viewing which domains have console logs, and then displaying part of a domain's log. The log shows the point at which the domain was started and a boot command issued to start Solaris.

# cd /var/log/vntsd
# ls
ldom1   ldom2
# cd ldom1
# ls -l
total 501
-rw-------   1 root     root        1210 Dec 31 03:10 console-log
-rw-------   1 root     root          32 Dec 26 17:38 console-log.0
-rw-------   1 root     root       12490 Nov 21 13:06 console-log.1
-rw-------   1 root     root          62 Oct 31 12:53 console-log.2
-rw-------   1 root     root       61679 Sep 20 07:23 console-log.3
-rw-------   1 root     root        5257 Aug 30 18:28 console-log.4
# tail console-log.4
OpenBoot 4.33.6, 8192 MB memory available, Serial #83375173.
Ethernet address 0:14:4f:f8:34:45, Host ID: 84f83445.



{0} ok boot
Boot device: disk  File and args: 
SunOS Release 5.11 Version 11.1 64-bit
Copyright (c) 1983, 2012, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Enabling or disabling console logging

Console logging is turned on by default for all domains. You can see the console logging setting for a domain by issuing the command: ldm list -o console domain as shown below:

# ldm list -o console ldom1
NAME             
ldom1            

VCONS
    NAME             SERVICE                     PORT   LOGGING
    ldom1            primary-vcc0@primary        5000   on

Console logging can be turned on or off for an unbound domain by issuing the commandldm set-vcons log=on|off domain. If the domain is running, stop and unbind it first. For example:

# ldm stop ldom1
# ldom unbind ldom1
# ldm set-vcons log=off ldom1

After changing the log setting, the domain can be rebound and started:

# ldom bind ldom1
# ldm start ldom1

Summary

Oracle VM Server for SPARC provides console logging for guest domains. This collects all I/O from the guest console,and can be used for troubleshooting and audit purposes.