NSX Guest Introspection Platform
Host Agent (MUX) Logs

If virtual machines on an ESXi host are not being protected by policy configured Endpoint Security solution or if there are alarms related to Endpoint Security Service VM and host agent communication then the
NSX Guest Introspection Platform
Host Agent(MUX) may have issues that need to be analysed. This section describes log format, log location for the Host Agent (MUX) and how to ensure the Host Agent (MUX) service is running on the ESXi host.

Log Path and Sample Message

MUX Log path
/var/log/syslog
NSX Guest Introspection Platform
host agent (MUX) messages follow the format of <timestamp>ContextMUX<[ThreadID]>: <message>
For example:
2022-08-25T11:42:02Z ContextMux[54425342]: [INFO] (EPSEC) [54425342] NSX Context Multiplexor 17883598. [3.1.2.0.0] 2022-08-25T11:42:02Z ContextMux[54425342]: [INFO] (EPSEC) [54425342] VMkernel localhost 6.7.0 #1 SMP Release build-13006603 Mar 26 2019 13:38:24 x86_64 2022-08-25T11:42:02Z ContextMux[54425342]: [WARNING] (EPSEC) [54425345] Not sending events. MuxHandler has not been registered.
In the above example
  • [ERROR] is the type of message. Other types can be [DEBUG], [INFO]
  • (EPSEC) represents that the messages are specific to Endpoint Security

Enabling and Viewing Log Files

To change log levels, perform these steps on the ESXi host command shell:
  1. Set the
    NSX Guest Introspection Platform
    host agent (MUX) logging level.
    ~ # nsxcli -c set service nsx-context-mux logging-level debug
    off
    - This is intended to turn off logging
    fatal
    - Designates very severe events that may cause application to abort
    error
    - Designates error events that may allow application to continue running
    warn
    - Designates potentially harmful situations
    info
    - Designates coarse-grained informational messages
    debug
    - Designates fine-grained informational messages for debugging purposes
    trace
    - Designates verbose log messages
  2. View the
    NSX Guest Introspection Platform
    host agent (MUX) log messages in the
    /var/log/syslog.log
    file on the ESXi host. Check that the entries corresponding to the global solutions, solution ID, and port number are specified correctly.
  3. The default logging option for
    NSX Guest Introspection Platform
    is info and can be raised to debug to gather more information.
  4. To get a better idea of what the
    NSX Guest Introspection Platform
    is doing or check the communication status, you can check the logs on the ESXi host.
    NSX Guest Introspection Platform
    logs are written to the host
    /var/log/syslog
    file. This is also included in the ESXi host support logs.
  5. If you run into issues with the VIB installation, check the
    /var/log/esxupdate.log
    file on the ESXi host. This log provides accurate information to know the reason the package was not successfully installed. This is a common issue for
    NSX Guest Introspection Platform
    installation issues.
For more details, refer to NSX Guest Introspection Platform Host Agent (MUX) Logs.