MAN page from CentOS 6 virt-what-1.3-4.4.el6.i686.rpm

VIRT-WHAT

Section: Virtualization Support (1)
Updated: 2011-07-19
Index

NAME

virt-what - detect if we are running in a virtual machine

SUMMARY

virt-what [options]

DESCRIPTION

"virt-what" is a shell script which can be used to detect if theprogram is running in a virtual machine.

The program prints out a list of ``facts'' about the virtual machine,derived from heuristics. One fact is printed per line.

If nothing is printed and the script exits with code 0 (no error),then it can mean either that the program is running on bare-metalor the program is running inside a type of virtual machine which wedon't know about or cannot detect.

FACTS

hyperv

This is Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisor.

Status: confirmed by RWMJ

ibm_systemz

This is an IBM SystemZ (or other S/390) hardware partitioning system.Additional facts listed below may also be printed.

ibm_systemz-direct

This is Linux running directly on a IBM SystemZ hardware partitioningsystem.

This is expected to be a highly unusual configuration - ifyou see this result you should treat it with suspicion.

Status: not confirmed

ibm_systemz-lpar

This is Linux running directly on an LPAR on an IBM SystemZhardware partitioning system.

Status: not confirmed

ibm_systemz-zvm

This is a z/VM guest running in an LPAR on an IBM SystemZhardware partitioning system.

Status: confirmed by RWMJ using a Fedora guest running in z/VM

kvm

This guest is running on the KVM hypervisor using hardwareacceleration.

Note that if the hypervisor is using software accelerationyou should not see this, but should see the "qemu" factinstead.

Status: confirmed by RWMJ.

openvz

The guest appears to be running inside an OpenVZ or Virtuozzocontainer.

Status: contributed by Evgeniy Sokolov

powervm_lx86

The guest is running inside IBM PowerVM Lx86 Linux/x86 emulator.

Status: data supplied by Jeffrey Scheel, not confirmed

qemu

This is QEMU hypervisor using software emulation.

Note that for KVM (hardware accelerated) guests you should not seethis.

Status: confirmed by RWMJ.

uml

This is a User-Mode Linux (UML) guest.

Status: contributed by Laurent Leonard

virtage

This is Hitachi Virtualization Manager (HVM) Virtagehardware partitioning system.

Status: data supplied by Bhavna Sarathy, not confirmed

virtualbox

This is a VirtualBox guest.

Status: contributed by Laurent Leonard

virtualpc

The guest appears to be running on Microsoft VirtualPC.

Status: not confirmed

vmware

The guest appears to be running on VMware hypervisor.

Status: confirmed by RWMJ

xen

The guest appears to be running on Xen hypervisor.

Status: confirmed by RWMJ

xen-dom0

This is the Xen dom0 (privileged domain).

Status: confirmed by RWMJ

xen-domU

This is a Xen domU (paravirtualized guest domain).

Status: confirmed by RWMJ

xen-hvm

This is a Xen guest fully virtualized (HVM).

Status: confirmed by RWMJ

IMPORTANT NOTE

Most of the time, using this program is the wrong thing to do.Instead you should detect the specific features you actually want touse. (As an example, if you wanted to issue Xen hypervisor commandsyou would look for the "/proc/xen/privcmd" file).

However people keep asking for this, so we provide it. There are afew legitimate uses:

Bug reporting tool: If you think that virtualization could affect how your program runs,then you might use "virt-what" to report this in a bug reportingtool.
Status display and monitoring tools: You might include this information in status and monitoring programs.

AUTHORS

Richard W.M. Jones <rjones @ redhat . com>

COPYRIGHT

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modifyit under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published bythe 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 ofMERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See theGNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public Licensealong with this program; if not, write to the Free SoftwareFoundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

REPORTING BUGS

Bugs can be viewed on the Red Hat Bugzilla page:<https://bugzilla.redhat.com/>.

If you find a bug in virt-what, please follow these steps to report it:

1. Check for existing bug reports

Go to <https://bugzilla.redhat.com/> and search for similar bugs.Someone may already have reported the same bug, and they may evenhave fixed it.

2. Capture debug and error messages

Run

 virt-what > virt-what.log 2>&1

and keep virt-what.log. It may contain error messages which youshould submit with your bug report.

3. Get version of virt-what and version of libvirt.

Run

 virt-what --version

4. Submit a bug report.

Go to <https://bugzilla.redhat.com/> and enter a new bug.Please describe the problem in as much detail as possible.

Remember to include the version numbers (step 3) and the debugmessages file (step 2).

5. Assign the bug to rjones @ redhat.com

Assign or reassign the bug to rjones @ redhat.com (without thespaces). You can also send me an email with the bug number if youwant a faster response.

This document was created byman2html,using the manual pages.

VIRT-WHAT

NAME

SUMMARY

DESCRIPTION

FACTS

IMPORTANT NOTE

SEE ALSO

AUTHORS

COPYRIGHT

REPORTING BUGS

Index