Hi all,

Today there was a nice question about where the VMkernel processes run on the Dutch VMUG. Is there proof that the VMkernel helper processes (like vSwitches, VMotion, software iSCSI initiator) run on every Physical CPU? Well, yes there is! Check this out:

Run esxtop on the console (using putty or something).

Here you see for instance the console proces (ID 9) and the vmotion process (ID 8). Let's check those out. Press 'e' on your keyboard and then the ID of the process you which to know more about... (like 8 and 9).

Ok, so the process ID in my VMkernel for VMotion is 1075 (migServer) and 1024 (console).

Let's check those processes in the /proc/vmware/vm folder:

# cat /proc/vmware/vm/1075/cpu/status

and

# cat /proc/vmware/vm/1024/cpu/status

Check the affinity column and shine ;-). By the way, the cpu column is the actual Physical CPU in use, which can change over time depending on the loadbalancing of the VMkernel processes (evaluated every 20ms).