How To: Enable remote syslog on VMware Hosts

SSH over to your ESX server. You will need sudo or root access to complete the following.

• Edit the following with your favorite editor.

  vi /etc/syslog.conf 

• Add the following line to the bottom of the file. This will forward all the logs to the syslog server – a good thing.

  #forward to Syslog Server

  *.* @syslog.domain

• Restart the syslog service

  service syslog restart

• Open the local firewall to allow UDP over port 514

  esxcfg-firewall -o 514,udp,out,syslog

• Reload the firewall configuration

  esxcfg-firewall -l