The ESXi host must not be configured to override virtual machine (VM) logger settings.
An XCCDF Rule
Description
<VulnDiscussion>Each VM on an ESXi host runs in its own "vmx" process. Upon creation, a vmx process will look in two locations for configuration items, the ESXi host itself and the per-vm *.vmx file in the VM storage path on the datastore. The settings on the ESXi host are read first and take precedence over settings in the *.vmx file. This can be a convenient way to set a setting in one place and have it apply to all VMs running on that host. The difficulty is in managing those settings and determining the effective state. Since managing per-VM vmx settings can be fully automated and customized while the ESXi setting cannot be easily queried, the ESXi configuration must not be used.</VulnDiscussion><FalsePositives></FalsePositives><FalseNegatives></FalseNegatives><Documentable>false</Documentable><Mitigations></Mitigations><SeverityOverrideGuidance></SeverityOverrideGuidance><PotentialImpacts></PotentialImpacts><ThirdPartyTools></ThirdPartyTools><MitigationControl></MitigationControl><Responsibility></Responsibility><IAControls></IAControls>
- ID
- SV-256445r919031_rule
- Severity
- Medium
- References
- Updated
Remediation - Manual Procedure
From an ESXi shell, run the following commands:
# cp /etc/vmware/config /etc/vmware/config.bak
# grep -v "^vmx\.log" /etc/vmware/config.bak>/etc/vmware/config