VIRT-WHAT

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

virt-what [options]

"virt−what" is a shell script which can be used to detect if the program 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-metal or the program is running inside a type of virtual machine which we don’t know about or cannot detect.

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 partitioning system.

This is expected to be a highly unusual configuration − if you 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 SystemZ hardware partitioning system.

Status: not confirmed

ibm_systemz−zvm

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

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

linux_vserver

This process is running in a Linux VServer container.

Status: contributed by BarXX Metin

kvm

This guest is running on the KVM hypervisor using hardware acceleration.

Note that if the hypervisor is using software acceleration you should not see this, but should see the "qemu" fact instead.

Status: confirmed by RWMJ .

openvz

The guest appears to be running inside an OpenVZ or Virtuozzo container.

Status: contributed by Evgeniy Sokolov

parallels

The guest is running inside Parallels Virtual Platform (Parallels Desktop, Parallels Server).

Status: contributed by Justin Clift

powervm_lx86

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

Status: data originally supplied by Jeffrey Scheel, confimed by Yufang Zhang and RWMJ

qemu

This is QEMU hypervisor using software emulation.

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

Status: confirmed by RWMJ .

uml

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

Status: contributed by Laurent Leonard

virt

Some sort of virtualization appears to be present, but we are not sure what it is. In some very rare corner cases where we know that virtualization is hard to detect, we will try a timing attack to see if certain machine instructions are running much more slowly than they should be, which would indicate virtualization. In this case, the generic fact "virt" is printed.

virtage

This is Hitachi Virtualization Manager ( HVM ) Virtage hardware 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

Programs that use or wrap "virt−what" should check that the exit status is 0 before they attempt to parse the output of the command.

A non-zero exit status indicates some error, for example, an unrecognized command line argument. If the exit status is non-zero then the output "facts" (if any were printed) cannot be guaranteed and should be ignored.

The exit status does not have anything to do with whether the program is running on baremetal or under virtualization, nor with whether "virt−what" managed detection "correctly" (which is basically unknowable given the large variety of virtualization systems out there and that some systems deliberately emulate others).

"virt−what" is designed so that you can easily run it from other programs or wrap it up in a library.

Your program should check the exit status (see the section above).

Some programming languages (notably Python: issue 1652) erroneously mask the "SIGPIPE" signal and do not restore it when executing subprocesses. "virt−what" is a shell script and some shell commands do not work correctly when you do this. You may see warnings from "virt−what" similar to this:

 echo: write error: Broken pipe

The solution is to set the "SIGPIPE" signal handler back to "SIG_DFL" before running "virt−what".

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

However people keep asking for this, so we provide it. There are a few 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 reporting tool.

Status display and monitoring tools

You might include this information in status and monitoring programs.

<http://people.redhat.com/~rjones/virt−what/>, <http://www.vmware.com/>, <http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc>, <http://xensource.com/>, <http://bellard.org/qemu/>, <http://kvm.qumranet.com/>, <http://openvz.org/>

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

(C) Copyright 2008−2011 Red Hat Inc., <http://people.redhat.com/~rjones/virt−what/>

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 .

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 even have 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 you should submit with your bug report.

3. Get version of virt-what.

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 debug messages file (step 2) and as much other detail as possible.

5. Assign the bug to rjones @ redhat.com

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