VMware ESXi monitoring with Topologix

Infrastructure & Networking

Standalone ESXi hosts monitored directly over each host’s vSphere SOAP API — the iLO model for hypervisors: shared credentials on the integration, each host its own metric source by IP/DNS — with host health, hardware sensors, CPU/memory, datastores, and the VMs running on the host.

Requirements

  • A local ESXi account on each host (a read-only role is enough). vCenter SSO accounts don’t work for direct host access, and hosts in lockdown mode can’t be reached directly — monitor those through the vCenter integration.
  • HTTPS reach to each host’s management address from the server or a proxy agent (picked per source under Run on). Self-signed certificates are accepted with the toggle.

1 · Set up the integration

  1. Open the Integrations pageClick Integrations in the toolbar and pick VMware ESXi from the catalogue.
  2. Enter the shared credentialsUsername (e.g. root) and Password, plus the Allow self-signed TLS certificates toggle. Individual hosts are not stored here — they live on the metric sources.
  3. Create, then verifyClick Create, then reopen the integration, enter any host’s IP under Test Host, and click Test — it reads the host’s service content and reports the product (e.g. “VMware ESXi 8.0.2”). The test host isn’t saved, and a lockdown-mode host is called out explicitly.
The integration catalogue — VMware ESXi found via search.
The integration catalogue — VMware ESXi found via search.
The VMware ESXi configuration drawer with example values. Every screen in this guide is the real product.
The VMware ESXi configuration drawer with example values. Every screen in this guide is the real product.
Target on a private network? Route it through a proxy agent. Proxy agents run inside your network — behind NAT, on a management VLAN, in an air-gapped segment — and reach targets the Topologix server can't. The agent polls the server every 15 seconds for its assignments, runs the checks locally, and pushes results back every 5 seconds, so no inbound firewall rules are ever needed. Set a default proxy on the integration; every metric source can override it. If a proxy goes offline, its sources are marked stale within ~90 seconds and the last known values stay visible.

2 · Add it to a flow

  1. Select the host nodeClick the node, open Metrics, then + Add, choose the ESXi integration, and enter this host’s management IP or hostname.
  2. Pick a scopeHost overview — health, hardware sensors, CPU/memory, datastores and VM counts — or Single VM: click Load VMs and pick one for its CPU/memory/power state.
  3. SaveSet the interval and click Add Source. The host card shows overall status, uptime, CPU/memory utilization, per-datastore capacity, and sensor critical/warning counts.
Live canvas screenshots for this integration require a real VMware ESXi environment, so this guide shows the configuration screens only — the flow steps above work exactly like every other integration.

Good to know

  • Standalone ESXi does not expose the vCenter REST Automation API, so everything speaks SOAP against the host’s /sdk endpoint — the host’s real moref names are read from the service content first, since they differ from vCenter’s.
  • The free ESXi hypervisor licence (discontinued by Broadcom in 2024, reinstated with 8.0 U3e in 2025) locks the host API to read-only — which is all this integration needs.

All integrations →

See it on your own infrastructure

Book a demo and we will walk you through Topologix with your systems in mind: on our cloud, or self-hosted in your own network.

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