VMware provides technical assistance for debugging virtual machine issues, for example, VM kernel panics and virtual machines that hang. When you log a service request, you must send the performance snapshots to troubleshoot the issue. You can execute the vm-support command to collect the virtual machine logs. The vm-support command also creates a .tar file for sending the logs to VMware. The core image can be debugged using the RedHat Crash Utility as described in Collecting performance snapshots using vm-support.

VMware also provides a utility to help you to take an initial look at virtual machine issues, for example, VM kernel panics, a virtual machine with very slow response times, or for a virtual machine that hangs. The utility is called vmss2core. The vmss2core is a command line tool for creating virtual machine core file that you can use with the RedHat crash utility. For the vmss2core command, see Broadcom website (formerly VMware), and search for "vmss2core technical link". The vmss2core tool generates a vmcore core file, using the virtual machine’s .vmsn file from a snapshot, or .vmss file from a suspended virtual machine. For more information on RedHat crash utility, search for "White paper:RedHat Crash Utility" on your browser.