Virtual machines (VMs) must enable logging.

Severity	Group ID	Group Title	Version	Rule ID	Date	STIG Version
medium	V-258720	SRG-OS-000480-VMM-002000	VMCH-80-000207	SV-258720r959010_rule	2024-07-11	2

Description
The ESXi hypervisor maintains logs for each individual VM by default. These logs contain information including, but not limited to, power events, system failure information, tools status and activity, time sync, virtual hardware changes, vMotion migrations and machine clones. Due to the value these logs provide for the continued availability of each VM and potential security incidents, these logs must be enabled.

Description

The ESXi hypervisor maintains logs for each individual VM by default. These logs contain information including, but not limited to, power events, system failure information, tools status and activity, time sync, virtual hardware changes, vMotion migrations and machine clones. Due to the value these logs provide for the continued availability of each VM and potential security incidents, these logs must be enabled.

ℹ️ Check
For each virtual machine do the following: From the vSphere Client, right-click the Virtual Machine and go to Edit Settings >> VM Options >> Advanced. Ensure that the checkbox next to "Enable logging" is checked. or From a PowerCLI command prompt while connected to the ESXi host or vCenter server, run the following command: Get-VM \| Where {$_.ExtensionData.Config.Flags.EnableLogging -ne "True"} If logging is not enabled, this is a finding.

ℹ️ Check

For each virtual machine do the following: From the vSphere Client, right-click the Virtual Machine and go to Edit Settings >> VM Options >> Advanced. Ensure that the checkbox next to "Enable logging" is checked. or From a PowerCLI command prompt while connected to the ESXi host or vCenter server, run the following command: Get-VM | Where {$_.ExtensionData.Config.Flags.EnableLogging -ne "True"} If logging is not enabled, this is a finding.

✔️ Fix
For each virtual machine do the following: From the vSphere Client, right-click the Virtual Machine and go to Edit Settings >> VM Options >> Advanced. Click the checkbox next to "Enable logging". Click "OK". or From a PowerCLI command prompt while connected to the ESXi host or vCenter server, run the following commands: $spec = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineConfigSpec $spec.Flags = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineFlagInfo $spec.Flags.enableLogging = $true (Get-VM -Name <vmname>).ExtensionData.ReconfigVM($spec)

✔️ Fix

For each virtual machine do the following: From the vSphere Client, right-click the Virtual Machine and go to Edit Settings >> VM Options >> Advanced. Click the checkbox next to "Enable logging". Click "OK". or From a PowerCLI command prompt while connected to the ESXi host or vCenter server, run the following commands: $spec = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineConfigSpec $spec.Flags = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineFlagInfo $spec.Flags.enableLogging = $true (Get-VM -Name <vmname>).ExtensionData.ReconfigVM($spec)