vCenter task and event retention must be set to at least 30 days.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-256373	VCSA-70-000293	SV-256373r885730_rule		Medium

Description
vCenter tasks and events contain valuable historical actions, useful in troubleshooting availability issues and for incident forensics. While vCenter events are sent to central log servers in real time, it is important that administrators have quick access to this information when needed. vCenter retains 30 days of tasks and events by default, and this is sufficient for most purposes. The vCenter disk partitions are also sized with this in mind. Decreasing is not recommended for operational reasons, while increasing is not recommended unless guided by VMware support due to the partition sizing concerns.

Description

vCenter tasks and events contain valuable historical actions, useful in troubleshooting availability issues and for incident forensics. While vCenter events are sent to central log servers in real time, it is important that administrators have quick access to this information when needed. vCenter retains 30 days of tasks and events by default, and this is sufficient for most purposes. The vCenter disk partitions are also sized with this in mind. Decreasing is not recommended for operational reasons, while increasing is not recommended unless guided by VMware support due to the partition sizing concerns.

STIG	Date
VMware vSphere 7.0 vCenter Security Technical Implementation Guide	2023-12-21

Details

Check Text ( C-60048r885728_chk )
From the vSphere Client, go to Host and Clusters. Select a vCenter Server >> Configure >> Settings >> General. Click to expand the "Database" section. Note the "Task retention" and "Event retention" values. If either value is configured to less than "30" days, this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-59991r885729_fix)
From the vSphere Client, go to Host and Clusters. Select a vCenter Server >> Configure >> Settings >> General. Click "Edit". On the "Database" tab, set the value for both "Task retention" and "Event retention" to "30" days (default) or greater, as required by the site. Click "Save".