5 virt-inspector - Display operating system version and other information about a virtual machine
9 virt-inspector [--options] -d domname
11 virt-inspector [--options] -a disk.img [-a disk.img ...]
15 virt-inspector domname
17 virt-inspector disk.img [disk.img ...]
21 B<virt-inspector> examines a virtual machine or disk image and tries
22 to determine the version of the operating system and other information
23 about the virtual machine.
25 Virt-inspector produces XML output for feeding into other programs.
27 In the normal usage, use C<virt-inspector -d domname> where C<domname> is
28 the libvirt domain (see: C<virsh list --all>).
30 You can also run virt-inspector directly on disk images from a single
31 virtual machine. Use C<virt-inspector -a disk.img>. In rare cases a
32 domain has several block devices, in which case you should list
33 several I<-a> options one after another, with the first corresponding
34 to the guest's C</dev/sda>, the second to the guest's C</dev/sdb> and
37 You can also run virt-inspector on install disks, live CDs, bootable
40 Virt-inspector can only inspect and report upon I<one domain at a
41 time>. To inspect several virtual machines, you have to run
42 virt-inspector several times (for example, from a shell script
45 Because virt-inspector needs direct access to guest images, it won't
46 normally work over remote libvirt connections.
60 Add I<file> which should be a disk image from a virtual machine. If
61 the virtual machine has multiple block devices, you must supply all of
62 them with separate I<-a> options.
64 The format of the disk image is auto-detected. To override this and
65 force a particular format use the I<--format=..> option.
69 =item B<--connect URI>
71 If using libvirt, connect to the given I<URI>. If omitted,
72 then we connect to the default libvirt hypervisor.
74 Libvirt is only used if you specify a C<domname> on the
75 command line. If you specify guest block devices directly (I<-a>),
76 then libvirt is not used at all.
80 =item B<--domain> guest
82 Add all the disks from the named libvirt guest.
86 When prompting for keys and passphrases, virt-inspector normally turns
87 echoing off so you cannot see what you are typing. If you are not
88 worried about Tempest attacks and there is no one else in the room you
89 can specify this flag to see what you are typing.
91 =item B<--format=raw|qcow2|..>
95 Specify the format of disk images given on the command line. If this
96 is omitted then the format is autodetected from the content of the
99 If disk images are requested from libvirt, then this program asks
100 libvirt for this information. In this case, the value of the format
101 parameter is ignored.
103 If working with untrusted raw-format guest disk images, you should
104 ensure the format is always specified.
106 =item B<--keys-from-stdin>
108 Read key or passphrase parameters from stdin. The default is
109 to try to read passphrases from the user by opening C</dev/tty>.
115 Enable verbose messages for debugging.
121 Display version number and exit.
125 Enable tracing of libguestfs API calls.
129 =head1 OLD-STYLE COMMAND LINE ARGUMENTS
131 Previous versions of virt-inspector allowed you to write either:
133 virt-inspector disk.img [disk.img ...]
137 virt-inspector guestname
139 whereas in this version you should use I<-a> or I<-d> respectively
140 to avoid the confusing case where a disk image might have the same
143 For compatibility the old style is still supported.
147 The virt-inspector XML is described precisely in a RELAX NG schema
148 which is supplied with libguestfs. This section is just an overview.
150 The top-level element is E<lt>operatingsystemsE<gt>, and it contains
151 one or more E<lt>operatingsystemE<gt> elements. You would only see
152 more than one E<lt>operatingsystemE<gt> element if the virtual machine
153 is multi-boot, which is vanishingly rare in real world VMs.
155 =head2 E<lt>operatingsystemE<gt>
157 In the E<lt>operatingsystemE<gt> tag are various optional fields that
158 describe the operating system, its architecture, the descriptive
159 "product name" string, the type of OS and so on, as in this example:
163 <root>/dev/sda2</root>
166 <distro>windows</distro>
167 <product_name>Windows 7 Enterprise</product_name>
168 <major_version>6</major_version>
169 <minor_version>1</minor_version>
170 <windows_systemroot>/Windows</windows_systemroot>
171 <format>installed</format>
173 These fields are derived from the libguestfs inspection API, and
174 you can find more details in L<guestfs(3)/INSPECTION>.
176 The E<lt>rootE<gt> element is the root filesystem device, but from the
177 point of view of libguestfs (block devices may have completely
178 different names inside the VM itself).
180 =head2 E<lt>mountpointsE<gt>
182 Un*x-like guests typically have multiple filesystems which are mounted
183 at various mountpoints, and these are described in the
184 E<lt>mountpointsE<gt> element which looks like this:
190 <mountpoint dev="/dev/vg_f13x64/lv_root">/</mountpoint>
191 <mountpoint dev="/dev/sda1">/boot</mountpoint>
194 As with E<lt>rootE<gt>, devices are from the point of view of
195 libguestfs, and may have completely different names inside the guest.
196 Only mountable filesystems appear in this list, not things like swap
199 =head2 E<lt>filesystemsE<gt>
201 E<lt>filesystemsE<gt> is like E<lt>mountpointsE<gt> but covers I<all>
202 filesystems belonging to the guest, including swap and empty
203 partitions. (In the rare case of a multi-boot guest, it covers
204 filesystems belonging to this OS or shared by this OS and other OSes).
206 You might see something like this:
212 <filesystem dev="/dev/vg_f13x64/lv_root">
214 <label>Fedora-13-x86_64</label>
215 <uuid>e6a4db1e-15c2-477b-ac2a-699181c396aa</uuid>
218 The optional elements within E<lt>filesystemE<gt> are the filesystem
219 type, the label, and the UUID.
221 =head2 E<lt>applicationsE<gt>
223 The related elements E<lt>package_formatE<gt>,
224 E<lt>package_managementE<gt> and E<lt>applicationsE<gt> describe
225 applications installed in the virtual machine.
227 E<lt>package_formatE<gt>, if present, describes the packaging
228 system used. Typical values would be C<rpm> and C<deb>.
230 E<lt>package_managementE<gt>, if present, describes the package
231 manager. Typical values include C<yum>, C<up2date> and C<apt>
233 E<lt>applicationsE<gt> lists the packages or applications
241 <name>coreutils</name>
242 <version>8.5</version>
246 The version and release fields may not be available for some types
247 guests. Other fields are possible, see
248 L<guestfs(3)/guestfs_inspect_list_applications>.
250 =head2 INSPECTING INSTALL DISKS, LIVE CDs
252 Virt-inspector can detect some operating system installers on
253 install disks, live CDs, bootable USB keys and more.
255 In this case the E<lt>formatE<gt> tag will contain C<installer>
256 and other fields may be present to indicate a live CD, network
257 installer, or one part of a multipart CD. For example:
261 <root>/dev/sda</root>
264 <distro>ubuntu</distro>
265 <product_name>Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat"</product_name>
266 <major_version>10</major_version>
267 <minor_version>10</minor_version>
268 <format>installer</format>
273 You can use the XPath query language, and/or the xpath tool, in order
274 to select parts of the XML.
278 $ virt-inspector -d Guest | xpath //filesystems
282 <filesystem dev="/dev/vg_f13x64/lv_root">
286 $ virt-inspector -d Guest | \
287 xpath "string(//filesystem[@dev='/dev/sda1']/type)"
288 Query didn't return a nodeset. Value: ext4
292 Libvirt guest names can contain arbitrary characters, some of which
293 have meaning to the shell such as C<#> and space. You may need to
294 quote or escape these characters on the command line. See the shell
295 manual page L<sh(1)> for details.
301 L<http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath/>,
302 L<http://libguestfs.org/>.
310 Richard W.M. Jones L<http://people.redhat.com/~rjones/>
314 Matthew Booth L<mbooth@redhat.com>
320 Copyright (C) 2010 Red Hat Inc.
322 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
323 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
324 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
325 (at your option) any later version.
327 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
328 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
329 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
330 GNU General Public License for more details.
332 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
333 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
334 Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.