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VMware vCenter connector for Microsoft Sentinel

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The vCenter connector allows you to easily connect your vCenter server logs with Microsoft Sentinel. This gives you more insight into your organization's data centers and improves your security operation capabilities.

Connector attributes

Connector attribute Description
Log Analytics table(s) vCenter_CL
Data collection rules support Not currently supported
Supported by Microsoft Corporation

Query samples

Total Events by Event Type

vCenter 

| summarize count() by EventType

log in/out to vCenter Server

vCenter 

| where EventType in ('UserLogoutSessionEvent','UserLoginSessionEvent') 

| summarize count() by EventType,EventID,UserName,UserAgent 

| top 10 by count_

Vendor installation instructions

NOTE: This data connector depends on a parser based on a Kusto Function to work as expected which is deployed as part of the solution. To view the function code in Log Analytics, open Log Analytics/Microsoft Sentinel Logs blade, click Functions and search for the alias VMware vCenter and load the function code or click here, on the second line of the query, enter the hostname(s) of your VMware vCenter device(s) and any other unique identifiers for the logstream. The function usually takes 10-15 minutes to activate after solution installation/update.

  1. If you have not installed the vCenter solution from ContentHub then Follow the steps to use the Kusto function alias, vCenter
  1. Install and onboard the agent for Linux

Typically, you should install the agent on a different computer from the one on which the logs are generated.

Syslog logs are collected only from Linux agents.

  1. Configure the logs to be collected

Follow the configuration steps below to get vCenter server logs into Microsoft Sentinel. Refer to the Azure Monitor Documentation for more details on these steps. For vCenter Server logs, we have issues while parsing the data by OMS agent data using default settings. So we advice to capture the logs into custom table vCenter_CL using below instructions.

  1. Login to the server where you have installed OMS agent.

  2. Download config file vCenter.conf wget -v https://aka.ms/sentinel-vcenteroms-conf -O vcenter.conf

  3. Copy vcenter.conf to the /etc/opt/microsoft/omsagent/workspace_id/conf/omsagent.d/ folder. cp vcenter.conf /etc/opt/microsoft/omsagent/<<workspace_id>>/conf/omsagent.d/

  4. Edit vcenter.conf as follows:

    a. vcenter.conf uses the port 22033 by default. Ensure this port is not being used by any other source on your server

    b. If you would like to change the default port for vcenter.conf make sure that you dont use default Azure monotoring /log analytic agent ports I.e.(For example CEF uses TCP port 25226 or 25224)

    c. replace workspace_id with real value of your Workspace ID (lines 13,14,15,18)

  5. Save changes and restart the Azure Log Analytics agent for Linux service with the following command: sudo /opt/microsoft/omsagent/bin/service_control restart

  6. Modify /etc/rsyslog.conf file - add below template preferably at the beginning / before directives section $template vcenter,"%timestamp% %hostname% %msg%\n"

  7. Create a custom conf file in /etc/rsyslog.d/ for example 10-vcenter.conf and add following filter conditions.

    With an added statement you will need to create a filter which will specify the logs coming from the vcenter server to be forwarded to the custom table.

    reference: Filter Conditions — rsyslog 8.18.0.master documentation

    Here is an example of filtering that can be defined, this is not complete and will require additional testing for each installation. if $rawmsg contains "vcenter-server" then @@127.0.0.1:22033;vcenter & stop if $rawmsg contains "vpxd" then @@127.0.0.1:22033;vcenter & stop

  8. Restart rsyslog systemctl restart rsyslog

  9. Configure and connect the vCenter device(s)

Follow these instructions to configure the vCenter to forward syslog. Use the IP address or hostname for the Linux device with the Linux agent installed as the Destination IP address.

Next steps

For more information, go to the related solution in the Azure Marketplace.