Managing Guests

The main interface for command and control of both xVM control domains and guest domains is the virsh(1M) utility. Users should use virsh wherever possible to control virtualized operating systems. Some xVM operations are not yet implemented by the virsh utility. In those cases, the legacy utility xm(1M) can be used for detailed control.

The following actions can be performed:

• Start Selected Guest

  # virsh start sdomu

• Suspend Selected Guest

  # virsh suspend sdomu

  You can also use the destroy subcommand to bring the system to the shutoff state, but this can result in damage to data.

• Resume Selected Guest

  # virsh resume sdomu

• Shutdown Selected Guest

  # virsh shutdown sdomu

• Reboot Selected Guest

  # virsh reboot sdomu

• Undefine Selected Guest

  # virsh undefine sdomu

  Undefine the configuration for an inactive domain which is specified by either its domain name or UUID.

  To delete a guest, undefine the guest and then remove any associated disk resources.

• Connect Selected Guest to Network

  # virsh attach-interface sdomu bridge e1000g0

• Take Snapshot of Active Domain

  # virsh save sdomu /domains/sdomusnap

  The domain will be in the shut down state when the save operation completes. The resources, such as memory, allocated for the domain will be freed for use by other running domains.

  To restore:

  # virsh restore sdomu /domains/sdomusnap

  Note that network connections present before the save operation might be severed, since TCP timeouts might have expired.

• Pin vCPU

  # virsh vcpupin domain vcpu cpulist

  Pin domain's virtual CPUs to the host's physical CPUs. The domain parameter is the domain name, ID, or UUID. The vcpu parameter is the VCPU number. The cpulist parameter is a list of host CPU numbers, separated by commas.

• Restore Selected Guest

  # virsh restore sdomu

  Restore a domain that is in the saved state.

• Delete Selected Guest

  Deleting the guest will cause its image and snapshot to be deleted from the system.

To view the state of a domain, use the virsh list command.

For example:

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

By default, only running domains are displayed. Use virsh list --inactive to display only non-running domains.