virsh

virsh is a command line utility for managing virsh guest domains/virtual machines and the hypervisor. Can be used to operate vm like create, list, start, shutdown or suspend and to manage storage, snapshots and checkpoints among other actions. virt-manager is a graphical alternative to virsh. It supports Xen, QEMU, KVM, LXC, OpenVZ, VirtualBox and VMware ESX.

virsh is include in libvirt-client package in RHEL and Ubuntu and uses libvirt management API. Binaries included:

• virsh
• virt-admin
• virt-host-validate
• virt-login-shell
• virt-pki-validate
• virt-xml-validate

Basic Commands

• virsh
• virsh -r

All Commands

• virsh --connect
  • virsh -c qemu:///system list
• virsh attach-device
• virsh autostart VM_NAME or virsh autostart VM_NAME --disable (Related: virsh start and virsh pool-autostart)
• virsh blockcommit. Allows Live-disk-backup-with-active-blockcommit
• virsh blockcopy
• virsh blockjob
• virsh blockresize
• virsh change-media
• virsh create MY_XML_VM_DEFINITION.XML/
• virsh console YOUR_VM
• virsh define MY_XML_VM_DEFINITION.XML (define machine but do not start it)
  • virsh define xmlfile.xml --validate
  • virsh destroy VM_MACHINE_NAME (Ungraceful Shutdown but do not destroy data or VM but you can corrupt guest file systems)
  • virsh destroy VM_MACHINE_NAME --graceful
• virsh domblklist VMNAME
  • virsh domblklist --details VM_MACHINE_NAME
• virsh domblkstat VMNAME
• virsh domblkinfo VMNAME BLOCK_DEVICE (BLOCK_DEVICE from virsh domblklist command)
• virsh domdisplay
• virsh domfsfreeze Quiesces the guest filesystem in isolation
• virsh domfsthaw Quiesces the guest filesystem in isolation
• virsh domid
• virsh dominfo VMNAME_OR_ID Guess virtual machine information such us state and autostart configuration.
• virsh dommemstat
• virsh domname
• virsh domrename (since 2015)
• virsh dump --memory-only --verbose
• virsh dumpxml VMNAME - domain information in XML (Can be used to move VMs between hosts )
• virsh edit VMNAME
• virsh list
  • virsh list --name
• virsh memtune
• virsh migrate
• virsh pool-autostart
• virsh pool-build
• virsh pool-create create temporary storage pools from command line
• virsh pool-create-as create temporary storage pools from XML file
• virsh pool-define (create persistent storage from options from XML file)
• virsh pool-define-as (create persistent storage from options from command line)
• virsh pool-event
• virsh reboot
• virsh restore
• virsh resume
• virsh save
• virsh set-lifecycle-action. Added in November 2017 (v.3.9.0)
• virsh setmaxmem
• virsh setmem
  • virsh setmem —-config
• virsh setvcpus
• virsh snapshot-create-as
• virsh start
• virsh suspend
• virsh shutdown
• virsh undefine
• virsh update-device
• virsh vcpuinfo
• virsh vncdisplay
• virsh backup-begin
• virsh checkpoint-create
• virsh nodedev-list --tree
• virsh nodedev-dumpxml
• virsh nodedev-dettach

Getting Information

• List Running Virtual Machines:
  • virsh list
  • virsh list --name
  • virsh list --all

• virsh dominfo MY_VM_NAME Guess virtual machine information such us state and autostart configuration.

• virsh domstats (show all VMs)
  • virsh domstats --list-persistent
  • virsh domstats MY_VM_MACHINE
    • virsh domstats MY_VM_MACHINE --state
    • --no-wait option https://libvirt.org/news.html

• virsh nodeinfo

• View configuration:
  • virsh dumpxml {guest-id, VM_NAME or uuid} > yourfilename.xml
  • Virtual interfaces: virsh domiflist VM_NAME

Network info:

• virsh net-list
• virsh net-info

Storage info:

• virsh pool-list
• virsh pool-info <pool>
• virsh vol-list <pool> (Displays Name and Path)
  • virsh vol-list --details <pool> (Includes also Capacity and Allocation)
• virsh vol-info <vol>

Display info:

• virsh vncdisplay VM_NAME
• virsh domdisplay VM_NAME

Guest info:

• virsh guestinfo v5.7.0 (2019-09-03) (Libvirt Release notes)

• virhostuptime (Since August 2019) https://github.com/libvirt/libvirt/commit/8b802f13cb47817706cba101f5d52e2c8957698d#diff-8d027e5576f9d83750bb73c63b12a6e3

• virsh version

• virsh capabilities

Operations

Changing VM running status operations:

• Start VM: virsh start VM_MACHINE_NAME
• Shutdown VM: virsh shutdown (stop) Gracefully VM
• Reboot VM: virsh reboot Restart VM
• Reset VM:virsh reset emulates the power reset button on a machine
• Resume VM:virsh resume
• Destroy VM: virsh destroy VM_NAME (Ungraceful Shutdown/stop VM. Actually do not destroy data or VM but you can corrupt guest file systems)
  • virsh destroy VM_MACHINE_NAME --graceful
• virsh suspend
• Create: virsh define
• virsh undefine

• virsh console VM_MACHINE_NAME

Snapshots:

• virsh snapshot-create
• virsh snapshot-create --validate (08/2019)

Migrations:

• virsh migrate --live GuestName DestinationURL
• virsh migrate --offline (copying non-shared storage or other file based storages (e.g. UEFI variable storage) is not supported during offline migration)

Configuration:

• virsh autostart VM_MACHINE_NAME

Virsh Storage commands

Virsh Storage Information

• virsh domblklist VMNAME
• virsh domblkinfo
• virsh pool-list
  • virsh pool-list --all --details
• virsh pool-info <pool>
• virsh vol-info <vol>
• virsh vol-list <pool> (Displays Name and Path)
  • virsh vol-list --details <pool> (Includes also Capacity and Allocation)

All Storage commands

• virsh domblklist VMNAME
• virsh domblkinfo
• virsh pool-autostart
• virsh pool-build
• virsh pool-create create temporary storage pools from command line
• virsh pool-create-as create temporary storage pools from XML file
• virsh pool-define (create persistent storage from options from XML file)
• virsh pool-define-as (create persistent storage from options from command line)
• virsh pool-event
  • virsh pool-event --list
  • virsh pool-event --event lifecycle
  • virsh pool-event --event refresh
• virsh pool-list
• virsh pool-info <pool>
• virsh pool-start <pool>
• virsh vol-clone
• virsh vol-create-as
• virsh vol-info --pool POOL_NAME VOL_NAME
• virsh vol-list <pool>

Virsh Snapshots

• virsh snapshot-create Create a snapshot from XML. See also: qemu-img and qemu-img info
• virsh snapshot-create-as Create a snapshot from a set of args.
• virsh snapshot-current Get or set the current snapshot
• virsh snapshot-dumpxml VM_MACHINE_NAME SNAPSHOT_NAME Dump XML for a domain snapshot
• virsh snapshot-edit edit XML for a snapshot
• virsh snapshot-info snapshot information. (virsh snapshot-info --domain DOMAIN_NAME --snapshotname SNAPSHOT_NAME)
• virsh snapshot-list VM_MACHINE_NAME List snapshots for a domain
• virsh snapshot-parent Get the name of the parent of a snapshot
• virsh snapshot-revert (Destructive action) revert a domain to a snapshot
• virsh snapshot-delete Delete a domain snapshot

Virsh CPU Commands

• virsh cpu-models x86_64
• virsh setvcpus

Virsh Memory Commands

virsh Memory Commands: virsh setmaxmem, virsh setmem, virsh dommemstat

QEMU

• virsh qemu-attach QEMU Attach
• virsh qemu-monitor-command QEMU Monitor Command
• virsh qemu-monitor-event QEMU Monitor Events
  • virsh qemu-monitor-event VM_MACHINE_NAME
• virsh qemu-agent-command QEMU Guest Agent Command

Networking

• virsh domifaddr
• virsh domiflist
• virsh net-autostart autostart a network
• virsh net-create create a network from an XML file
• virsh net-define define an inactive persistent virtual network or modify an existing persistent one from an XML file
• virsh net-destroy destroy (stop) a network
• virsh net-dhcp-leases print DHCP lease info for a given network
• virsh net-dumpxml NET_NAME network information in XML
• virsh net-edit edit XML configuration for a network
• virsh net-event Network Events
• virsh net-info network information
• virsh net-list list networks
• virsh net-name convert a network UUID to network name
• virsh net-start start a (previously defined) inactive network
• virsh net-undefine undefine a persistent network
• virsh net-update update parts of an existing network's configuration
• virsh net-uuid convert a network name to network UUID

Activities

1. Review virsh command cheatsheet https://computingforgeeks.com/virsh-commands-cheatsheet/
2. Read https://github.com/libvirt/libvirt/blob/master/tools/virsh.c source code.
3. Enable access to your VM Machines via virsh console command
4. Learn difference between virsh define and virsh create
5. Create Live backups with active virsh blockcommit
6. Offline Migrate or move a virtual machine between two KVM servers without shared storage: virsh dumpxml and virsh define

See also

• virtinst package, includes following python binaries: virt-clone, virt-convert, virt-install
• virt-top 'top'-like utility for virtualization stats
• ovirt-RHV module
• virt-admin
• libvirtd: systemctl status libvirtd, systemctl status libvirt-guests, Libvirt release notes, logs, libvirtd.conf, /etc/libvirt/, /var/log/libvirt/
• KVM, Installation, QEMU, virsh, virtinst, libguestfs-tools, libvirt, qemu, Red Hat Virtualization (RHV), MacVTap, Virtio, oVirt, KVM services, KVM networking, KVM graphics, CPU, KVM on ARM
• virsh: Storage information, Connecting, Operations, Memory, Snapshots, Networking, CPU, release notes, virsh nodedev-list