virt-inspector(1) Virtualization Support virt-inspector(1)NAMEvirt-inspector - Display OS version, kernel, drivers, mount points,
applications, etc. in a virtual machine
SYNOPSISvirt-inspector [--connect URI] domname
virt-inspector guest.img [guest.img ...]
DESCRIPTIONvirt-inspector examines a virtual machine and tries to determine the
version of the OS, the kernel version, what drivers are installed,
whether the virtual machine is fully virtualized (FV) or para-
virtualized (PV), what applications are installed and more.
Virt-inspector can produce output in several formats, including a
readable text report, and XML for feeding into other programs.
In the normal usage, use "virt-inspector domname" where "domname" is
the libvirt domain (see: "virsh list --all").
You can also run virt-inspector directly on disk images from a single
virtual machine. Use "virt-inspector guest.img". In rare cases a
domain has several block devices, in which case you should list them
one after another, with the first corresponding to the guest's
"/dev/sda", the second to the guest's "/dev/sdb" and so on.
Virt-inspector can only inspect and report upon one domain at a time.
To inspect several virtual machines, you have to run virt-inspector
several times (for example, from a shell script for-loop).
Because virt-inspector needs direct access to guest images, it won't
normally work over remote libvirt connections.
OPTIONS--help
Display brief help.
--version
Display version number and exit.
--connect URI | -c URI
If using libvirt, connect to the given URI. If omitted, then we
connect to the default libvirt hypervisor.
Libvirt is only used if you specify a "domname" on the command
line. If you specify guest block devices directly, then libvirt is
not used at all.
--format raw
Specify the format of disk images given on the command line. If
this is omitted then the format is autodetected from the content of
the disk image.
If disk images are requested from libvirt, then this program asks
libvirt for this information. In this case, the value of the
format parameter is ignored.
If working with untrusted raw-format guest disk images, you should
ensure the format is always specified.
The following options select the output format. Use only one of them.
The default is a readable text report.
--text (default)
Plain text report.
--none
Produce no output at all.
--xml
If you select --xml then you get XML output which can be fed to
other programs.
--yaml
If you select --yaml then you get YAML output which can be fed to
other programs.
--perl
If you select --perl then you get Perl structures output which can
be used directly in another Perl program.
--fish
--ro-fish
If you select --fish then we print a guestfish(1) command line
which will automatically mount up the filesystems on the correct
mount points. Try this for example:
guestfish $(virt-inspector --fish guest.img)
--ro-fish is the same, but the --ro option is passed to guestfish
so that the filesystems are mounted read-only.
--query
In "query mode" we answer common questions about the guest, such as
whether it is fullvirt or needs a Xen hypervisor to run.
See section QUERY MODE below.
--windows-registry
This flag is ignored for compatibility with earlier releases of the
software.
In this version, if Win::Hivex(3) is available, then we attempt to
parse information out of the Registry for any Windows guest.
OUTPUT FORMAT
Operating system(s)-------------------
Linux (distro + version)
Windows (version)
|
|
+--- Filesystems ---------- Installed apps --- Kernel & drivers
-----------------------------------------
mount point => device List of apps Extra information
mount point => device and versions about kernel(s)
... and drivers
swap => swap device
(plus lots of extra information
about each filesystem)
The output of virt-inspector is a complex two-level data structure.
At the top level is a list of the operating systems installed on the
guest. (For the vast majority of guests, only a single OS is
installed.) The data returned for the OS includes the name (Linux,
Windows), the distribution and version.
The diagram above shows what we return for each OS.
With the --xml option the output is mapped into an XML document. There
is a RELAX-NG schema for this XML in the file virt-inspector.rng which
normally ships with virt-inspector, or can be found in the source.
With the --fish or --ro-fish option the mount points are mapped to
guestfish(1) command line parameters, so that you can go in afterwards
and inspect the guest with everything mounted in the right place. For
example:
guestfish $(virt-inspector --ro-fish guest.img)
==> guestfish --ro -a guest.img -m /dev/VG/LV:/ -m /dev/sda1:/boot
QUERY MODE
When you use "virt-inspector --query", the output is a series of lines
of the form:
windows=no
linux=yes
fullvirt=yes
xen_pv_drivers=no
(each answer is usually "yes" or "no", or the line is completely
missing if we could not determine the answer at all).
If the guest is multiboot, you can get apparently conflicting answers
(eg. "windows=yes" and "linux=yes", or a guest which is both fullvirt
and has a Xen PV kernel). This is normal, and just means that the
guest can do both things, although it might require operator
intervention such as selecting a boot option when the guest is booting.
This section describes the full range of answers possible.
windows=(yes|no)
Answer "yes" if Microsoft Windows is installed in the guest.
linux=(yes|no)
Answer "yes" if a Linux kernel is installed in the guest.
rhel=(yes|no)
Answer "yes" if the guest contains Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
fedora=(yes|no)
Answer "yes" if the guest contains the Fedora Linux distribution.
debian=(yes|no)
Answer "yes" if the guest contains the Debian Linux distribution.
fullvirt=(yes|no)
Answer "yes" if there is at least one operating system kernel
installed in the guest which runs fully virtualized. Such a guest
would require a hypervisor which supports full system
virtualization.
Note: This only works correctly for Linux guests (RHBZ#690358).
xen_domU_kernel=(yes|no)
Answer "yes" if there is at least one Linux kernel installed in the
guest which is compiled as a Xen DomU (a Xen paravirtualized
guest).
xen_pv_drivers=(yes|no)
Answer "yes" if the guest has Xen paravirtualized drivers installed
(usually the kernel itself will be fully virtualized, but the PV
drivers have been installed by the administrator for performance
reasons).
virtio_drivers=(yes|no)
Answer "yes" if the guest has virtio paravirtualized drivers
installed. Virtio drivers are commonly used to improve the
performance of KVM.
userspace_arch=(x86_64|...)
Print the architecture of userspace.
NB. For multi-boot VMs this can print several lines.
kernel_arch=(x86_64|...)
Print the architecture of the kernel.
NB. For multi-boot VMs this can print several lines.
SHELL QUOTING
Libvirt guest names can contain arbitrary characters, some of which
have meaning to the shell such as "#" and space. You may need to quote
or escape these characters on the command line. See the shell manual
page sh(1) for details.
SEE ALSOguestfs(3), guestfish(1), Sys::Guestfs(3), Sys::Guestfs::Lib(3),
Sys::Virt(3), <http://libguestfs.org/>.
AUTHORS
Richard W.M. Jones <http://people.redhat.com/~rjones/>
Matthew Booth mbooth@redhat.com
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2009 Red Hat Inc.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
Contains code from perl String::ShellQuote under the following
copyright and license:
Copyright (c) 1997 Roderick Schertler. All rights reserved. This
program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself.
libguestfs-1.20.11 2013-11-21 virt-inspector(1)
