Device and Sensor Setup > Sensor Settings

PRTG Manual: VMware Virtual Machine (SOAP) Sensor

The VMware Virtual Machine (SOAP) sensor monitors a virtual machine (VM) on a VMware host server using the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP).

VMware Virtual Machine (SOAP) Sensor

For a detailed list and descriptions of the channels that this sensor can show, see section Channel List.

Sensor in Other Languages

Dutch: VMware Virtuele Machine (SOAP)
French: VMware machine virtuelle (SOAP)
German: VMware Virtual Machine (SOAP)
Japanese: VMware 仮想マシン（SOAP）
Portuguese: Máquina virtual VMware (SOAP)
Russian: Виртуальная машина VMware (SOAP)
Simplified Chinese: VMware 虚拟机 (SOAP)
Spanish: Máquina virtual VMware (SOAP)

Remarks

This sensor has a very high performance impact. Use it with care. We recommend that you use no more than 50 sensors of this sensor type on each probe.
This sensor requires .NET 4.7.2 or later from Microsoft on the probe system.
This sensor requires credentials for VMware/XenServer in the settings of the parent device. Ensure that you enter a user with sufficient access rights to obtain statistics (read-only usually works).
We recommend that you use vCenter as parent device. If the monitored VM changes the host server via vMotion, PRTG can still continue monitoring. The sensor can monitor VMware ESXi server as of version 5.2.
We recommend Windows Server 2012 R2 on the probe system for best performance of this sensor.
For VMware virtual machines, disk usage channels are only available as of virtual hardware version 8.
This sensor supports the IPv6 protocol.
See the Knowledge Base: I cannot add VMware sensors because of "wrong" password although it is correct. What can I do?
See the Knowledge Base: Why are my VMware sensors not working after upgrading to VCSA 6.5 U1?

Detailed Requirements

Requirement	Description
.NET 4.7.2 or later	This sensor requires .NET 4.7.2 or later to be installed on the probe system (on every cluster node, if on a cluster probe). If the framework is missing, you cannot create this sensor. For more information, see the Knowledge Base: Which .NET version does PRTG require?

Requirement

Description

.NET 4.7.2 or later

This sensor requires .NET 4.7.2 or later to be installed on the probe system (on every cluster node, if on a cluster probe).

If the framework is missing, you cannot create this sensor.

For more information, see the Knowledge Base: Which .NET version does PRTG require?

Settings on VMware Host System

If you set up this sensor on different probes (for example, when using remote probes or when running a failover cluster), you might need to change the settings of your VMware host so that it accepts more incoming connections. Otherwise, you might get connection timeouts when running plenty of VMware sensors with a short scanning interval.

For details about this setting, see the Knowledge Base: How can I increase the connection limit on VMware systems? PE121.

Add Sensor

The Add Sensor dialog appears when you manually add a new sensor to a device. It only shows the settings that are required to create the sensor. You can change nearly all settings on the sensor's Settings tab after creation.

PRTG requests a full list of all VMs configured on the target device. Because of this, it might take a few seconds before the dialog appears.

VMware Virtual Machine Settings

Setting	Description
Virtual Machines	You see a list of all VMs available on the host server on this device, including the ones that do not run. PRTG lists all VMs by name and the operating system that they run on. Select the VMs that you want to monitor. PRTG creates one sensor for each VM that you select.

Basic Sensor Settings

Click the Settings tab of a sensor to change its settings.

Basic Sensor Settings

Setting	Description
Sensor Name	Enter a name to identify the sensor.
Parent Tags	Shows tags that the sensor inherits from its parent device, parent group, and parent probe. This setting is for your information only. You cannot change it.
Tags	Enter one or more tags. Confirm each tag with the Spacebar key, a comma, or the Enter key. You can use tags to group objects and use tag-filtered views later on. Tags are not case-sensitive. Tags are automatically inherited. It is not possible to enter tags with a leading plus (+) or minus (-) sign, nor tags with parentheses (()) or angle brackets (<>). For performance reasons, it can take some minutes until you can filter for new tags that you added. The sensor has the following default tags that are automatically predefined in the sensor's settings when you add the sensor: esxservervmsensor
Priority	Select a priority for the sensor. This setting determines the position of the sensor in lists. The highest priority is at the top of a list. Choose from the lowest priority () to the highest priority ().

VMware Virtual Machine Settings

Setting	Description
Managed Object Identifier (MOID)	Shows the managed object identifier (MOID) of the VM that this sensor monitors. PRTG shows this value for reference purposes only. If you need to change this value, add the sensor anew.
Powered-Off VM Handling	Define how the sensor reacts to VMs that are powered off: Alarm when VM is powered off (default): Change to the Down status if the VM is powered off. If the sensor is in the Down status, it does not record any data in any of its channels. Ignore powered-off state: Do not change to the Down status if the VM is powered off. The sensor reports zero values instead.
Result Handling	Define what PRTG does with the sensor result: Discard result: Do not store the sensor result. Store result: Store the last sensor result in the \Logs\sensors subfolder of the PRTG data directory on the probe system. The file names are Result of Sensor [ID].txt and Result of Sensor [ID].Data.txt. This setting is for debugging purposes. PRTG overwrites these files with each scanning interval. This option is not available when the sensor runs on the hosted probe of a PRTG Hosted Monitor instance. In a cluster, PRTG stores the result in the PRTG data directory of the master node.

Setting

Description

Managed Object Identifier (MOID)

Shows the managed object identifier (MOID) of the VM that this sensor monitors.

PRTG shows this value for reference purposes only. If you need to change this value, add the sensor anew.

Powered-Off VM Handling

Define how the sensor reacts to VMs that are powered off:

Alarm when VM is powered off (default): Change to the Down status if the VM is powered off.

If the sensor is in the Down status, it does not record any data in any of its channels.

Ignore powered-off state: Do not change to the Down status if the VM is powered off. The sensor reports zero values instead.

Result Handling

Define what PRTG does with the sensor result:

Discard result: Do not store the sensor result.

Store result: Store the last sensor result in the \Logs\sensors subfolder of the PRTG data directory on the probe system. The file names are Result of Sensor [ID].txt and Result of Sensor [ID].Data.txt. This setting is for debugging purposes. PRTG overwrites these files with each scanning interval.

This option is not available when the sensor runs on the hosted probe of a PRTG Hosted Monitor instance.

In a cluster, PRTG stores the result in the PRTG data directory of the master node.

Sensor Display

Setting	Description
Primary Channel	Select a channel from the list to define it as the primary channel. In the device tree, the last value of the primary channel is always displayed below the sensor's name. The available options depend on what channels are available for this sensor. You can set a different primary channel later by clicking below a channel gauge on the sensor's Overview tab.
Graph Type	Define how different channels are shown for this sensor: Show channels independently (default): Show a graph for each channel. Stack channels on top of each other: Stack channels on top of each other to create a multi-channel graph. This generates a graph that visualizes the different components of your total traffic. You cannot use this option in combination with manual Vertical Axis Scaling (available in the channel settings).
Stack Unit	This setting is only visible if you enable Stack channels on top of each other as Graph Type. Select a unit from the list. All channels with this unit are stacked on top of each other. By default, you cannot exclude single channels from stacking if they use the selected unit. However, there is an advanced procedure to do so.

Setting

Description

Primary Channel

Select a channel from the list to define it as the primary channel. In the device tree, the last value of the primary channel is always displayed below the sensor's name. The available options depend on what channels are available for this sensor.

You can set a different primary channel later by clicking below a channel gauge on the sensor's Overview tab.

Graph Type

Define how different channels are shown for this sensor:

Show channels independently (default): Show a graph for each channel.
Stack channels on top of each other: Stack channels on top of each other to create a multi-channel graph. This generates a graph that visualizes the different components of your total traffic.
You cannot use this option in combination with manual Vertical Axis Scaling (available in the channel settings).

Stack Unit

This setting is only visible if you enable Stack channels on top of each other as Graph Type. Select a unit from the list. All channels with this unit are stacked on top of each other. By default, you cannot exclude single channels from stacking if they use the selected unit. However, there is an advanced procedure to do so.

Inherited Settings

By default, all of these settings are inherited from objects that are higher in the hierarchy. We recommend that you change them centrally in the root group settings if necessary. To change a setting for this object only, click under the corresponding setting name to disable the inheritance and to display its options.

For more information, see section Inheritance of Settings.

Scanning Interval

For more information, see section Root Group Settings, section Scanning Interval.

Schedules, Dependencies, and Maintenance Window

You cannot interrupt the inheritance for schedules, dependencies, and maintenance windows. The corresponding settings from the parent objects are always active. However, you can define additional schedules, dependencies, and maintenance windows. They are active at the same time as the parent objects' settings.

Schedules, Dependencies, and Maintenance Window

For more information, see section Root Group Settings, section Schedules, Dependencies, and Maintenance Window.

Access Rights

For more information, see section Root Group Settings, section Access Rights.

Channel Unit Configuration

Which channel units are available depends on the sensor type and the available parameters. If no configurable channels are available, this field shows No configurable channels.

Channel Unit Configuration

For more information, see section Root Group Settings, section Channel Unit Configuration.

Channel List

Which channels the sensor actually shows might depend on the target device, the available components, and the sensor setup.

Channel	Description
CPU Ready (Percent)	The CPU readiness in percent
CPU Usage	The CPU usage in percent This channel is the primary channel by default.
Datastore Total Read Latency	The datastore total read latency in milliseconds (msec)
Datastore Total Write Latency	The datastore total write latency in msec
Disk Read	The disk read speed in bytes per second
Disk Usage	The disk usage per second
Disk Write	The disk write speed in bytes per second
Downtime	In the channel table on the Overview tab, this channel never shows any values. PRTG uses this channel in graphs and reports to show the amount of time in which the sensor was in the Down status in percent.
Memory Active	The active memory in bytes
Memory Consumed	The consumed memory in bytes
Memory Consumed (Percent)	The memory consumed in percent
Network Received	The received bytes per second
Network Transmitted	The transmitted bytes per second
Network Usage	The total network usage in bytes per second
Power	The average host power usage in watts