1virt-inspector(1) Virtualization Support virt-inspector(1)
2
6 virt-inspector - Display OS version, kernel, drivers, mount points,
7 applications, etc. in a virtual machine
8
10 virt-inspector [--connect URI] domname
11 virt-inspector guest.img [guest.img ...]
13
15 virt-inspector examines a virtual machine and tries to determine the
16 version of the OS, the kernel version, what drivers are installed,
17 whether the virtual machine is fully virtualized (FV) or para-
18 virtualized (PV), what applications are installed and more.
19 Virt-inspector can produce output in several formats, including a
21 readable text report, and XML for feeding into other programs.
22 In the normal usage, use "virt-inspector domname" where "domname" is
24 the libvirt domain (see: "virsh list --all").
25 You can also run virt-inspector directly on disk images from a single
27 virtual machine. Use "virt-inspector guest.img". In rare cases a
28 domain has several block devices, in which case you should list them
29 one after another, with the first corresponding to the guest's
30 "/dev/sda", the second to the guest's "/dev/sdb" and so on.
31 Virt-inspector can only inspect and report upon one domain at a time.
33 To inspect several virtual machines, you have to run virt-inspector
34 several times (for example, from a shell script for-loop).
35 Because virt-inspector needs direct access to guest images, it won't
37 normally work over remote libvirt connections.
38
40 --help
41 Display brief help.
42 --version
44 Display version number and exit.
45 --connect URI | -c URI
47 If using libvirt, connect to the given URI. If omitted, then we
48 connect to the default libvirt hypervisor.
49 Libvirt is only used if you specify a "domname" on the command
51 line. If you specify guest block devices directly, then libvirt is
52 not used at all.
53 --format raw
55 Specify the format of disk images given on the command line. If
56 this is omitted then the format is autodetected from the content of
57 the disk image.
58 If disk images are requested from libvirt, then this program asks
60 libvirt for this information. In this case, the value of the
61 format parameter is ignored.
62 If working with untrusted raw-format guest disk images, you should
64 ensure the format is always specified.
65 The following options select the output format. Use only one of them.
67 The default is a readable text report.
68 --text (default)
70 Plain text report.
71 --none
73 Produce no output at all.
74 --xml
76 If you select --xml then you get XML output which can be fed to
77 other programs.
78 --yaml
80 If you select --yaml then you get YAML output which can be fed to
81 other programs.
82 --perl
84 If you select --perl then you get Perl structures output which can
85 be used directly in another Perl program.
86 --fish
88 --ro-fish
89 If you select --fish then we print a guestfish(1) command line
90 which will automatically mount up the filesystems on the correct
91 mount points. Try this for example:
92 guestfish $(virt-inspector --fish guest.img)
94 --ro-fish is the same, but the --ro option is passed to guestfish
96 so that the filesystems are mounted read-only.
97 --query
99 In "query mode" we answer common questions about the guest, such as
100 whether it is fullvirt or needs a Xen hypervisor to run.
101 See section QUERY MODE below.
103 --windows-registry
105 This flag is ignored for compatibility with earlier releases of the
106 software.
107 In this version, if Win::Hivex(3) is available, then we attempt to
109 parse information out of the Registry for any Windows guest.
110
112 Operating system(s)
113 -------------------
114 Linux (distro + version)
115 Windows (version)
116 |
117 |
118 +--- Filesystems ---------- Installed apps --- Kernel & drivers
119 ----------- -------------- ----------------
120 mount point => device List of apps Extra information
121 mount point => device and versions about kernel(s)
122 ... and drivers
123 swap => swap device
124 (plus lots of extra information
125 about each filesystem)
126 The output of virt-inspector is a complex two-level data structure.
128 At the top level is a list of the operating systems installed on the
130 guest. (For the vast majority of guests, only a single OS is
131 installed.) The data returned for the OS includes the name (Linux,
132 Windows), the distribution and version.
133 The diagram above shows what we return for each OS.
135 With the --xml option the output is mapped into an XML document. There
137 is a RELAX-NG schema for this XML in the file virt-inspector.rng which
138 normally ships with virt-inspector, or can be found in the source.
139 With the --fish or --ro-fish option the mount points are mapped to
141 guestfish(1) command line parameters, so that you can go in afterwards
142 and inspect the guest with everything mounted in the right place. For
143 example:
144 guestfish $(virt-inspector --ro-fish guest.img)
146 ==> guestfish --ro -a guest.img -m /dev/VG/LV:/ -m /dev/sda1:/boot
147
149 When you use "virt-inspector --query", the output is a series of lines
150 of the form:
151 windows=no
153 linux=yes
154 fullvirt=yes
155 xen_pv_drivers=no
156 (each answer is usually "yes" or "no", or the line is completely
158 missing if we could not determine the answer at all).
159 If the guest is multiboot, you can get apparently conflicting answers
161 (eg. "windows=yes" and "linux=yes", or a guest which is both fullvirt
162 and has a Xen PV kernel). This is normal, and just means that the
163 guest can do both things, although it might require operator
164 intervention such as selecting a boot option when the guest is booting.
165 This section describes the full range of answers possible.
167 windows=(yes|no)
169 Answer "yes" if Microsoft Windows is installed in the guest.
170 linux=(yes|no)
172 Answer "yes" if a Linux kernel is installed in the guest.
173 rhel=(yes|no)
175 Answer "yes" if the guest contains Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
176 fedora=(yes|no)
178 Answer "yes" if the guest contains the Fedora Linux distribution.
179 debian=(yes|no)
181 Answer "yes" if the guest contains the Debian Linux distribution.
182 fullvirt=(yes|no)
184 Answer "yes" if there is at least one operating system kernel
185 installed in the guest which runs fully virtualized. Such a guest
186 would require a hypervisor which supports full system
187 virtualization.
188 Note: This only works correctly for Linux guests (RHBZ#690358).
190 xen_domU_kernel=(yes|no)
192 Answer "yes" if there is at least one Linux kernel installed in the
193 guest which is compiled as a Xen DomU (a Xen paravirtualized
194 guest).
195 xen_pv_drivers=(yes|no)
197 Answer "yes" if the guest has Xen paravirtualized drivers installed
198 (usually the kernel itself will be fully virtualized, but the PV
199 drivers have been installed by the administrator for performance
200 reasons).
201 virtio_drivers=(yes|no)
203 Answer "yes" if the guest has virtio paravirtualized drivers
204 installed. Virtio drivers are commonly used to improve the
205 performance of KVM.
206 userspace_arch=(x86_64|...)
208 Print the architecture of userspace.
209 NB. For multi-boot VMs this can print several lines.
211 kernel_arch=(x86_64|...)
213 Print the architecture of the kernel.
214 NB. For multi-boot VMs this can print several lines.
216
218 Libvirt guest names can contain arbitrary characters, some of which
219 have meaning to the shell such as "#" and space. You may need to quote
220 or escape these characters on the command line. See the shell manual
221 page sh(1) for details.
222
224 guestfs(3), guestfish(1), Sys::Guestfs(3), Sys::Guestfs::Lib(3),
225 Sys::Virt(3), <http://libguestfs.org/>.
226
228 Richard W.M. Jones <http://people.redhat.com/~rjones/>
229 Matthew Booth mbooth@redhat.com
231
233 Copyright (C) 2009 Red Hat Inc.
234 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
236 under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
237 Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
238 option) any later version.
239 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
241 WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
242 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
243 General Public License for more details.
244 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
246 with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
247 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
248 Contains code from perl String::ShellQuote under the following
250 copyright and license:
251 Copyright (c) 1997 Roderick Schertler. All rights reserved. This
253 program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
254 under the same terms as Perl itself.
255libguestfs-1.20.11 2017-03-23 virt-inspector(1)