1virt-inspector(1) Virtualization Support virt-inspector(1)
2
6 virt-inspector - Display operating system version and other information
7 about a virtual machine
8
10 virt-inspector [--options] -d domname
11 virt-inspector [--options] -a disk.img [-a disk.img ...]
13 Old-style:
15 virt-inspector domname
17 virt-inspector disk.img [disk.img ...]
19
21 virt-inspector examines a virtual machine or disk image and tries to
22 determine the version of the operating system and other information
23 about the virtual machine.
24 Virt-inspector produces XML output for feeding into other programs.
26 In the normal usage, use "virt-inspector -d domname" where "domname" is
28 the libvirt domain (see: "virsh list --all").
29 You can also run virt-inspector directly on disk images from a single
31 virtual machine. Use "virt-inspector -a disk.img". In rare cases a
32 domain has several block devices, in which case you should list several
33 -a options one after another, with the first corresponding to the
34 guest’s /dev/sda, the second to the guest’s /dev/sdb and so on.
35 You can also run virt-inspector on install disks, live CDs, bootable
37 USB keys and similar.
38 Virt-inspector can only inspect and report upon one domain at a time.
40 To inspect several virtual machines, you have to run virt-inspector
41 several times (for example, from a shell script for-loop).
42 Because virt-inspector needs direct access to guest images, it won’t
44 normally work over remote libvirt connections.
45 All of the information available from virt-inspector is also available
47 through the core libguestfs inspection API (see "INSPECTION" in
48 guestfs(3)). The same information can also be fetched using guestfish
49 or via libguestfs bindings in many programming languages (see "GETTING
50 INSPECTION DATA FROM THE LIBGUESTFS API").
51 Additional information about bootloader, kernel and drivers inside a
53 guest can be found using virt-drivers(1).
54
56 --help
57 Display brief help.
58 -a file
60 --add file
61 Add file which should be a disk image from a virtual machine. If
62 the virtual machine has multiple block devices, you must supply all
63 of them with separate -a options.
64 The format of the disk image is auto-detected. To override this
66 and force a particular format use the --format=.. option.
67 -a URI
69 --add URI
70 Add a remote disk. See "ADDING REMOTE STORAGE" in guestfish(1).
71 --blocksize=512
73 --blocksize=4096
74 --blocksize
75 This parameter sets the sector size of the disk image. It affects
76 all explicitly added subsequent disks after this parameter. Using
77 --blocksize with no argument switches the disk sector size to the
78 default value which is usually 512 bytes. See also
79 "guestfs_add_drive_opts" in guestfs(3).
80 -c URI
82 --connect URI
83 If using libvirt, connect to the given URI. If omitted, then we
84 connect to the default libvirt hypervisor.
85 Libvirt is only used if you specify a "domname" on the command
87 line. If you specify guest block devices directly (-a), then
88 libvirt is not used at all.
89 -d guest
91 --domain guest
92 Add all the disks from the named libvirt guest. Domain UUIDs can
93 be used instead of names.
94 --echo-keys
96 When prompting for keys and passphrases, virt-inspector normally
97 turns echoing off so you cannot see what you are typing. If you
98 are not worried about Tempest attacks and there is no one else in
99 the room you can specify this flag to see what you are typing.
100 --format=raw|qcow2|..
102 --format
103 Specify the format of disk images given on the command line. If
104 this is omitted then the format is autodetected from the content of
105 the disk image.
106 If disk images are requested from libvirt, then this program asks
108 libvirt for this information. In this case, the value of the
109 format parameter is ignored.
110 If working with untrusted raw-format guest disk images, you should
112 ensure the format is always specified.
113 --key SELECTOR
115 Specify a key for LUKS, to automatically open a LUKS device when
116 using the inspection.
117 --key NAME:key:KEY_STRING
119 --key UUID:key:KEY_STRING
120 --key all:key:KEY_STRING
121 "NAME" is the libguestfs device name (eg. "/dev/sda1"). "UUID"
122 is the device UUID. "all" means try the key against any
123 encrypted device.
124 Use the specified "KEY_STRING" as passphrase.
126 --key NAME:file:FILENAME
128 --key UUID:file:FILENAME
129 --key all:file:FILENAME
130 Read the passphrase from FILENAME.
131 --key NAME:clevis
133 --key UUID:clevis
134 --key all:clevis
135 Attempt passphrase-less unlocking for the device with Clevis,
136 over the network. Please refer to "ENCRYPTED DISKS" in
137 guestfs(3) for more information on network-bound disk
138 encryption (NBDE).
139 Note that if any such option is present on the command line,
141 QEMU user networking will be automatically enabled for the
142 libguestfs appliance.
143 --keys-from-stdin
145 Read key or passphrase parameters from stdin. The default is to
146 try to read passphrases from the user by opening /dev/tty.
147 If there are multiple encrypted devices then you may need to supply
149 multiple keys on stdin, one per line.
150 --no-applications
152 By default the output of virt-inspector includes the list of all
153 the applications installed in the guest, if available.
154 Specify this option to disable this part of the resulting XML.
156 --no-icon
158 By default the output of virt-inspector includes the icon of the
159 guest, if available (see "icon").
160 Specify this option to disable this part of the resulting XML.
162 -v
164 --verbose
165 Enable verbose messages for debugging.
166 -V
168 --version
169 Display version number and exit.
170 -x Enable tracing of libguestfs API calls.
172 --xpath query
174 Perform an XPath query on the XML on stdin, and print the result on
175 stdout. In this mode virt-inspector simply runs an XPath query;
176 all other inspection functions are disabled. See "XPATH QUERIES"
177 below for some examples.
178
180 Previous versions of virt-inspector allowed you to write either:
181 virt-inspector disk.img [disk.img ...]
183 or
185 virt-inspector guestname
187 whereas in this version you should use -a or -d respectively to avoid
189 the confusing case where a disk image might have the same name as a
190 guest.
191 For compatibility the old style is still supported.
193
195 The virt-inspector XML is described precisely in a RELAX NG schema file
196 virt-inspector.rng which is supplied with libguestfs. This section is
197 just an overview.
198 The top-level element is <operatingsystems>, and it contains one or
200 more <operatingsystem> elements. You would only see more than one
201 <operatingsystem> element if the virtual machine is multi-boot, which
202 is vanishingly rare in real world VMs.
203 <operatingsystem>
205 In the <operatingsystem> tag are various optional fields that describe
206 the operating system, its architecture, the descriptive "product name"
207 string, the type of OS and so on, as in this example:
208 <operatingsystems>
210 <operatingsystem>
211 <root>/dev/sda2</root>
212 <name>windows</name>
213 <arch>i386</arch>
214 <distro>windows</distro>
215 <product_name>Windows 7 Enterprise</product_name>
216 <product_variant>Client</product_variant>
217 <major_version>6</major_version>
218 <minor_version>1</minor_version>
219 <windows_systemroot>/Windows</windows_systemroot>
220 In brief, <name> is the class of operating system (something like
222 "linux" or "windows"), <distro> is the distribution (eg. "fedora" but
223 many other distros are recognized) and <arch> is the guest
224 architecture. The other fields are fairly self-explanatory, but
225 because these fields are taken directly from the libguestfs inspection
226 API you can find precise information from "INSPECTION" in guestfs(3).
227 The <root> element is the root filesystem device, but from the point of
229 view of libguestfs (block devices may have completely different names
230 inside the VM itself).
231 <mountpoints>
233 Un*x-like guests typically have multiple filesystems which are mounted
234 at various mountpoints, and these are described in the <mountpoints>
235 element which looks like this:
236 <operatingsystems>
238 <operatingsystem>
239 ...
240 <mountpoints>
241 <mountpoint dev="/dev/vg_f13x64/lv_root">/</mountpoint>
242 <mountpoint dev="/dev/sda1">/boot</mountpoint>
243 </mountpoints>
244 As with <root>, devices are from the point of view of libguestfs, and
246 may have completely different names inside the guest. Only mountable
247 filesystems appear in this list, not things like swap devices.
248 <filesystems>
250 <filesystems> is like <mountpoints> but covers all filesystems
251 belonging to the guest, including swap and empty partitions. (In the
252 rare case of a multi-boot guest, it covers filesystems belonging to
253 this OS or shared with this OS and other OSes).
254 You might see something like this:
256 <operatingsystems>
258 <operatingsystem>
259 ...
260 <filesystems>
261 <filesystem dev="/dev/vg_f13x64/lv_root">
262 <type>ext4</type>
263 <label>Fedora-13-x86_64</label>
264 <uuid>e6a4db1e-15c2-477b-ac2a-699181c396aa</uuid>
265 </filesystem>
266 The optional elements within <filesystem> are the filesystem type, the
268 label, and the UUID.
269 <applications>
271 The related elements <package_format>, <package_management> and
272 <applications> describe applications installed in the virtual machine.
273 <package_format>, if present, describes the packaging system used.
275 Typical values would be "rpm" and "deb".
276 <package_management>, if present, describes the package manager.
278 Typical values include "yum", "up2date" and "apt"
279 <applications> lists the packages or applications installed.
281 <operatingsystems>
283 <operatingsystem>
284 ...
285 <applications>
286 <application>
287 <name>coreutils</name>
288 <version>8.5</version>
289 <release>1</release>
290 </application>
291 The version and release fields may not be available for some types
293 guests. Other fields are possible, see
294 "guestfs_inspect_list_applications" in guestfs(3).
295 <drive_mappings>
297 For operating systems like Windows which use drive letters, virt-
298 inspector is able to find out how drive letters map to filesystems.
299 <operatingsystems>
301 <operatingsystem>
302 ...
303 <drive_mappings>
304 <drive_mapping name="C">/dev/sda2</drive_mapping>
305 <drive_mapping name="E">/dev/sdb1</drive_mapping>
306 </drive_mappings>
307 In the example above, drive C maps to the filesystem on the second
309 partition on the first disk, and drive E maps to the filesystem on the
310 first partition on the second disk.
311 Note that this only covers permanent local filesystem mappings, not
313 things like network shares. Furthermore NTFS volume mount points may
314 not be listed here.
315 <icon>
317 Virt-inspector is sometimes able to extract an icon or logo for the
318 guest. The icon is returned as base64-encoded PNG data. Note that the
319 icon can be very large and high quality.
320 <operatingsystems>
322 <operatingsystem>
323 ...
324 <icon>
325 iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAGAAAABg[.......]
326 [... many lines of base64 data ...]
327 </icon>
328 To display the icon, you have to extract it and convert the base64 data
330 back to a binary file. Use an XPath query or simply an editor to
331 extract the data, then use the coreutils base64(1) program to do the
332 conversion back to a PNG file:
333 base64 -i -d < icon.data > icon.png
335
337 Virt-inspector includes built in support for running XPath queries.
338 The reason for including XPath support directly in virt-inspector is
339 simply that there are no good and widely available command line
340 programs that can do XPath queries. The only good one is xmlstarlet(1)
341 and that is not available on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
342 To perform an XPath query, use the --xpath option. Note that in this
344 mode, virt-inspector simply reads XML from stdin and outputs the query
345 result on stdout. All other inspection features are disabled in this
346 mode.
347 For example:
349 $ virt-inspector -d Guest | virt-inspector --xpath '//filesystems'
351 <filesystems>
352 <filesystem dev="/dev/vg_f13x64/lv_root">
353 <type>ext4</type>
354 [...]
355 $ virt-inspector -d Guest | \
357 virt-inspector --xpath "string(//filesystem[@dev='/dev/sda1']/type)"
358 ext4
359 $ virt-inspector -d Guest | \
361 virt-inspector --xpath 'string(//icon)' | base64 -i -d | display -
362 [displays the guest icon, if there is one]
363
365 In early versions of libguestfs, virt-inspector was a large Perl script
366 that contained many heuristics for inspecting guests. This had several
367 problems: in order to do inspection from other tools (like guestfish)
368 we had to call out to this Perl script; and it privileged Perl over
369 other languages that libguestfs supports.
370 By libguestfs 1.8 we had rewritten the Perl code in C, and incorporated
372 it all into the core libguestfs API (guestfs(3)). Now virt-inspector
373 is simply a thin C program over the core C API. All of the inspection
374 information is available from all programming languages that libguestfs
375 supports, and from guestfish.
376 For a description of the C inspection API, read "INSPECTION" in
378 guestfs(3).
379 For example code using the C inspection API, look for inspect-vm.c
381 which ships with libguestfs.
382 inspect-vm.c has also been translated into other languages. For
384 example, inspect_vm.pl is the Perl translation, and there are other
385 translations for OCaml, Python, etc. See "USING LIBGUESTFS WITH OTHER
386 PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES" in guestfs(3) for a list of man pages which
387 contain this example code.
388 GETTING INSPECTION DATA FROM GUESTFISH
390 If you use the guestfish -i option, then the main C inspection API
391 "guestfs_inspect_os" in guestfs(3) is called. This is equivalent to
392 the guestfish command "inspect-os". You can also call this guestfish
393 command by hand.
394 "inspect-os" performs inspection on the current disk image, returning
396 the list of operating systems found. Each OS is represented by its
397 root filesystem device. In the majority of cases, this command prints
398 nothing (no OSes found), or a single root device, but beware that it
399 can print multiple lines if there are multiple OSes or if there is an
400 install CD attached to the guest.
401 $ guestfish --ro -a F15x32.img
403 ><fs> run
404 ><fs> inspect-os
405 /dev/vg_f15x32/lv_root
406 Using the root device, you can fetch further information about the
408 guest:
409 ><fs> inspect-get-type /dev/vg_f15x32/lv_root
411 linux
412 ><fs> inspect-get-distro /dev/vg_f15x32/lv_root
413 fedora
414 ><fs> inspect-get-major-version /dev/vg_f15x32/lv_root
415 15
416 ><fs> inspect-get-product-name /dev/vg_f15x32/lv_root
417 Fedora release 15 (Lovelock)
418 Limitations of guestfish make it hard to assign the root device to a
420 variable (since guestfish doesn't have variables), so if you want to do
421 this reproducibly you are better off writing a script using one of the
422 other languages that the libguestfs API supports.
423 To list applications, you have to first mount up the disks:
425 ><fs> inspect-get-mountpoints /dev/vg_f15x32/lv_root
427 /: /dev/vg_f15x32/lv_root
428 /boot: /dev/vda1
429 ><fs> mount-ro /dev/vg_f15x32/lv_root /
430 ><fs> mount-ro /dev/vda1 /boot
431 and then call the inspect-list-applications API:
433 ><fs> inspect-list-applications /dev/vg_f15x32/lv_root | head -28
435 [0] = {
436 app_name: ConsoleKit
437 app_display_name:
438 app_epoch: 0
439 app_version: 0.4.5
440 app_release: 1.fc15
441 app_install_path:
442 app_trans_path:
443 app_publisher:
444 app_url:
445 app_source_package:
446 app_summary:
447 app_description:
448 }
449 [1] = {
450 app_name: ConsoleKit-libs
451 app_display_name:
452 app_epoch: 0
453 app_version: 0.4.5
454 app_release: 1.fc15
455 app_install_path:
456 app_trans_path:
457 app_publisher:
458 app_url:
459 app_source_package:
460 app_summary:
461 app_description:
462 }
463 To display an icon for the guest, note that filesystems must also be
465 mounted as above. You can then do:
466 ><fs> inspect-get-icon /dev/vg_f15x32/lv_root | display -
468
470 As described above, early versions of libguestfs shipped with a
471 different virt-inspector program written in Perl (the current version
472 is written in C). The XML output of the Perl virt-inspector was
473 different and it could also output in other formats like text.
474 The old virt-inspector is no longer supported or shipped with
476 libguestfs.
477 To confuse matters further, in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 we ship two
479 versions of virt-inspector with different names:
480 virt-inspector Old Perl version.
482 virt-inspector2 New C version.
483
485 This program returns 0 if successful, or non-zero if there was an
486 error.
487
489 guestfs(3), guestfish(1), http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath/, base64(1),
490 xmlstarlet(1), virt-drivers(1), http://libguestfs.org/.
491
493 • Richard W.M. Jones http://people.redhat.com/~rjones/
494 • Matthew Booth mbooth@redhat.com
496
498 Copyright (C) 2010-2023 Red Hat Inc.
499
501 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
502 under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
503 Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
504 option) any later version.
505 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
507 WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
508 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
509 General Public License for more details.
510 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
512 with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
513 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.
514
516 To get a list of bugs against libguestfs, use this link:
517 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/buglist.cgi?component=libguestfs&product=Virtualization+Tools
518 To report a new bug against libguestfs, use this link:
520 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/enter_bug.cgi?component=libguestfs&product=Virtualization+Tools
521 When reporting a bug, please supply:
523 • The version of libguestfs.
525 • Where you got libguestfs (eg. which Linux distro, compiled from
527 source, etc)
528 • Describe the bug accurately and give a way to reproduce it.
530 • Run libguestfs-test-tool(1) and paste the complete, unedited output
532 into the bug report.
533guestfs-tools-1.51.6 2023-12-09 virt-inspector(1)