Domain States

A domain can be in one of six states. States are shown in virsh list displays.

For example:

#  virsh list
ID    Name        State  
-------------------------
0     Domain-0    running
2     sxc18       paused

The states are:

r, running

The domain is currently running on a CPU.

b, blocked

The domain is blocked, and not running or able to be run. This can be caused because the domain is waiting on IO (a traditional wait state) or it has gone to sleep because there was nothing running in it.

p, paused

The domain has been paused, usually through the administrator running virsh suspend. When in a paused state, the domain still consumes allocated resources like memory, but is not eligible for scheduling by the hypervisor. Run resume domain to place the domain in the running state.

s, in shutdown

The domain is in process of shutting down, but has not completely shutdown or crashed.

s, shutoff

The domain is shut down.

c, crashed

The domain has crashed. Usually this state can only occur if the domain has been configured not to restart on crash. See xmdomain.cfg(5) for more information.