General note concerning the use of guest agent interfaces:
"unsupported" is a higher-level error than the errors that individual
commands might document. The caller should always be prepared to receive
QERR_UNSUPPORTED, even if the given command doesn’t specify it, or doesn’t
document any failure mode at all.
Command: guest-sync-delimited
Echo back a unique integer value, and prepend to response a
leading sentinel byte (0xFF) the client can check scan for.
This is used by clients talking to the guest agent over the
wire to ensure the stream is in sync and doesn’t contain stale
data from previous client. It must be issued upon initial
connection, and after any client-side timeouts (including
timeouts on receiving a response to this command).
After issuing this request, all guest agent responses should be
ignored until the response containing the unique integer value
the client passed in is returned. Receival of the 0xFF sentinel
byte must be handled as an indication that the client’s
lexer/tokenizer/parser state should be flushed/reset in
preparation for reliably receiving the subsequent response. As
an optimization, clients may opt to ignore all data until a
sentinel value is receiving to avoid unnecessary processing of
stale data.
Similarly, clients should also precede this request
with a 0xFF byte to make sure the guest agent flushes any
partially read JSON data from a previous client connection.
Arguments:
id: int
randomly generated 64-bit integer
Returns:
The unique integer id passed in by the client
Since:
1.1
Command: guest-sync
Echo back a unique integer value
This is used by clients talking to the guest agent over the
wire to ensure the stream is in sync and doesn’t contain stale
data from previous client. All guest agent responses should be
ignored until the provided unique integer value is returned,
and it is up to the client to handle stale whole or
partially-delivered JSON text in such a way that this response
can be obtained.
In cases where a partial stale response was previously
received by the client, this cannot always be done reliably.
One particular scenario being if qemu-ga responses are fed
character-by-character into a JSON parser. In these situations,
using guest-sync-delimited may be optimal.
For clients that fetch responses line by line and convert them
to JSON objects, guest-sync should be sufficient, but note that
in cases where the channel is dirty some attempts at parsing the
response may result in a parser error.
Such clients should also precede this command
with a 0xFF byte to make sure the guest agent flushes any
partially read JSON data from a previous session.
Arguments:
id: int
randomly generated 64-bit integer
Returns:
The unique integer id passed in by the client
Since:
0.15.0
Command: guest-ping
Ping the guest agent, a non-error return implies success
Since:
0.15.0
Command: guest-get-time
Get the information about guest’s System Time relative to
the Epoch of 1970-01-01 in UTC.
Returns:
Time in nanoseconds.
Since:
1.5
Command: guest-set-time
Set guest time.
When a guest is paused or migrated to a file then loaded
from that file, the guest OS has no idea that there
was a big gap in the time. Depending on how long the
gap was, NTP might not be able to resynchronize the
guest.
This command tries to set guest’s System Time to the
given value, then sets the Hardware Clock (RTC) to the
current System Time. This will make it easier for a guest
to resynchronize without waiting for NTP. If no time is
specified, then the time to set is read from RTC. However,
this may not be supported on all platforms (i.e. Windows).
If that’s the case users are advised to always pass a
value.
Arguments:
time: int (optional)
time of nanoseconds, relative to the Epoch
of 1970-01-01 in UTC.
Returns:
Nothing on success.
Since:
1.5
Object: GuestAgentCommandInfo
Information about guest agent commands.
Members:
name: string
name of the command
enabled: boolean
whether command is currently enabled by guest admin
success-response: boolean
whether command returns a response on success
(since 1.7)
Since:
1.1.0
Object: GuestAgentInfo
Information about guest agent.
Members:
version: string
guest agent version
supported_commands: array of GuestAgentCommandInfo
Information about guest agent commands
Since:
0.15.0
Command: guest-info
Get some information about the guest agent.
Returns:GuestAgentInfo
Since:
0.15.0
Command: guest-shutdown
Initiate guest-activated shutdown. Note: this is an asynchronous
shutdown request, with no guarantee of successful shutdown.
Arguments:
mode: string (optional)
"halt", "powerdown" (default), or "reboot"
This command does NOT return a response on success. Success condition
is indicated by the VM exiting with a zero exit status or, when
running with –no-shutdown, by issuing the query-status QMP command
to confirm the VM status is "shutdown".
Since:
0.15.0
Command: guest-file-open
Open a file in the guest and retrieve a file handle for it
Arguments:
path: string
Full path to the file in the guest to open.
mode: string (optional)
open mode, as per fopen(), "r" is the default.
Returns:
Guest file handle on success.
Since:
0.15.0
Command: guest-file-close
Close an open file in the guest
Arguments:
handle: int
filehandle returned by guest-file-open
Returns:
Nothing on success.
Since:
0.15.0
Object: GuestFileRead
Result of guest agent file-read operation
Members:
count: int
number of bytes read (note: count is before
base64-encoding is applied)
buf-b64: string
base64-encoded bytes read
eof: boolean
whether EOF was encountered during read operation.
Since:
0.15.0
Command: guest-file-read
Read from an open file in the guest. Data will be base64-encoded
Arguments:
handle: int
filehandle returned by guest-file-open
count: int (optional)
maximum number of bytes to read (default is 4KB)
Returns:GuestFileRead on success.
Since:
0.15.0
Object: GuestFileWrite
Result of guest agent file-write operation
Members:
count: int
number of bytes written (note: count is actual bytes
written, after base64-decoding of provided buffer)
eof: boolean
whether EOF was encountered during write operation.
Since:
0.15.0
Command: guest-file-write
Write to an open file in the guest.
Arguments:
handle: int
filehandle returned by guest-file-open
buf-b64: string
base64-encoded string representing data to be written
count: int (optional)
bytes to write (actual bytes, after base64-decode),
default is all content in buf-b64 buffer after base64 decoding
Returns:GuestFileWrite on success.
Since:
0.15.0
Object: GuestFileSeek
Result of guest agent file-seek operation
Members:
position: int
current file position
eof: boolean
whether EOF was encountered during file seek
Since:
0.15.0
Enum: QGASeek
Symbolic names for use in guest-file-seek
Values:
set
Set to the specified offset (same effect as ’whence’:0)
cur
Add offset to the current location (same effect as ’whence’:1)
end
Add offset to the end of the file (same effect as ’whence’:2)
Since:
2.6
Alternate: GuestFileWhence
Controls the meaning of offset to guest-file-seek.
Members:
value: int
Integral value (0 for set, 1 for cur, 2 for end), available
for historical reasons, and might differ from the host’s or
guest’s SEEK_* values (since: 0.15)
name: QGASeek
Symbolic name, and preferred interface
Since:
2.6
Command: guest-file-seek
Seek to a position in the file, as with fseek(), and return the
current file position afterward. Also encapsulates ftell()’s
functionality, with offset=0 and whence=1.
Arguments:
handle: int
filehandle returned by guest-file-open
offset: int
bytes to skip over in the file stream
whence: GuestFileWhence
Symbolic or numeric code for interpreting offset
Returns:GuestFileSeek on success.
Since:
0.15.0
Command: guest-file-flush
Write file changes bufferred in userspace to disk/kernel buffers
Arguments:
handle: int
filehandle returned by guest-file-open
Returns:
Nothing on success.
Since:
0.15.0
Enum: GuestFsfreezeStatus
An enumeration of filesystem freeze states
Values:
thawed
filesystems thawed/unfrozen
frozen
all non-network guest filesystems frozen
Since:
0.15.0
Command: guest-fsfreeze-status
Get guest fsfreeze state. error state indicates
Returns:
GuestFsfreezeStatus ("thawed", "frozen", etc., as defined below)
Note:
This may fail to properly report the current state as a result of
some other guest processes having issued an fs freeze/thaw.
Since:
0.15.0
Command: guest-fsfreeze-freeze
Sync and freeze all freezable, local guest filesystems. If this
command succeeded, you may call guest-fsfreeze-thaw later to
unfreeze.
Note:
On Windows, the command is implemented with the help of a
Volume Shadow-copy Service DLL helper. The frozen state is limited
for up to 10 seconds by VSS.
Returns:
Number of file systems currently frozen. On error, all filesystems
will be thawed.
Since:
0.15.0
Command: guest-fsfreeze-freeze-list
Sync and freeze specified guest filesystems.
See also guest-fsfreeze-freeze.
Arguments:
mountpoints: array of string (optional)
an array of mountpoints of filesystems to be frozen.
If omitted, every mounted filesystem is frozen.
Invalid mount points are ignored.
Returns:
Number of file systems currently frozen. On error, all filesystems
will be thawed.
Since:
2.2
Command: guest-fsfreeze-thaw
Unfreeze all frozen guest filesystems
Returns:
Number of file systems thawed by this call
Note:
if return value does not match the previous call to
guest-fsfreeze-freeze, this likely means some freezable
filesystems were unfrozen before this call, and that the
filesystem state may have changed before issuing this
command.
Since:
0.15.0
Object: GuestFilesystemTrimResult
Members:
path: string
path that was trimmed
error: string (optional)
an error message when trim failed
trimmed: int (optional)
bytes trimmed for this path
minimum: int (optional)
reported effective minimum for this path
Since:
2.4
Object: GuestFilesystemTrimResponse
Members:
paths: array of GuestFilesystemTrimResult
list of GuestFilesystemTrimResult per path that was trimmed
Since:
2.4
Command: guest-fstrim
Discard (or "trim") blocks which are not in use by the filesystem.
Arguments:
minimum: int (optional)
Minimum contiguous free range to discard, in bytes. Free ranges
smaller than this may be ignored (this is a hint and the guest
may not respect it). By increasing this value, the fstrim
operation will complete more quickly for filesystems with badly
fragmented free space, although not all blocks will be discarded.
The default value is zero, meaning "discard every free block".
Returns:
A GuestFilesystemTrimResponse which contains the
status of all trimmed paths. (since 2.4)
Since:
1.2
Command: guest-suspend-disk
Suspend guest to disk.
This command tries to execute the scripts provided by the pm-utils package.
If it’s not available, the suspend operation will be performed by manually
writing to a sysfs file.
For the best results it’s strongly recommended to have the pm-utils
package installed in the guest.
This command does NOT return a response on success. There is a high chance
the command succeeded if the VM exits with a zero exit status or, when
running with –no-shutdown, by issuing the query-status QMP command to
to confirm the VM status is "shutdown". However, the VM could also exit
(or set its status to "shutdown") due to other reasons.
The following errors may be returned:
If suspend to disk is not supported, Unsupported
Notes:
It’s strongly recommended to issue the guest-sync command before
sending commands when the guest resumes
Since:
1.1
Command: guest-suspend-ram
Suspend guest to ram.
This command tries to execute the scripts provided by the pm-utils package.
If it’s not available, the suspend operation will be performed by manually
writing to a sysfs file.
For the best results it’s strongly recommended to have the pm-utils
package installed in the guest.
IMPORTANT: guest-suspend-ram requires QEMU to support the ’system_wakeup’
command. Thus, it’s required to query QEMU for the presence of the
’system_wakeup’ command before issuing guest-suspend-ram.
This command does NOT return a response on success. There are two options
to check for success:
Wait for the SUSPEND QMP event from QEMU
Issue the query-status QMP command to confirm the VM status is
"suspended"
The following errors may be returned:
If suspend to ram is not supported, Unsupported
Notes:
It’s strongly recommended to issue the guest-sync command before
sending commands when the guest resumes
Since:
1.1
Command: guest-suspend-hybrid
Save guest state to disk and suspend to ram.
This command requires the pm-utils package to be installed in the guest.
IMPORTANT: guest-suspend-hybrid requires QEMU to support the ’system_wakeup’
command. Thus, it’s required to query QEMU for the presence of the
’system_wakeup’ command before issuing guest-suspend-hybrid.
This command does NOT return a response on success. There are two options
to check for success:
Wait for the SUSPEND QMP event from QEMU
Issue the query-status QMP command to confirm the VM status is
"suspended"
The following errors may be returned:
If hybrid suspend is not supported, Unsupported
Notes:
It’s strongly recommended to issue the guest-sync command before
sending commands when the guest resumes
Since:
1.1
Enum: GuestIpAddressType
An enumeration of supported IP address types
Values:
ipv4
IP version 4
ipv6
IP version 6
Since:
1.1
Object: GuestIpAddress
Members:
ip-address: string
IP address
ip-address-type: GuestIpAddressType
Type of ip-address (e.g. ipv4, ipv6)
prefix: int
Network prefix length of ip-address
Since:
1.1
Object: GuestNetworkInterfaceStat
Members:
rx-bytes: int
total bytes received
rx-packets: int
total packets received
rx-errs: int
bad packets received
rx-dropped: int
receiver dropped packets
tx-bytes: int
total bytes transmitted
tx-packets: int
total packets transmitted
tx-errs: int
packet transmit problems
tx-dropped: int
dropped packets transmitted
Since:
2.11
Object: GuestNetworkInterface
Members:
name: string
The name of interface for which info are being delivered
hardware-address: string (optional)
Hardware address of name
ip-addresses: array of GuestIpAddress (optional)
List of addresses assigned to name
statistics: GuestNetworkInterfaceStat (optional)
various statistic counters related to name
(since 2.11)
Since:
1.1
Command: guest-network-get-interfaces
Get list of guest IP addresses, MAC addresses
and netmasks.
Returns:
List of GuestNetworkInfo on success.
Since:
1.1
Object: GuestLogicalProcessor
Members:
logical-id: int
Arbitrary guest-specific unique identifier of the VCPU.
online: boolean
Whether the VCPU is enabled.
can-offline: boolean (optional)
Whether offlining the VCPU is possible. This member
is always filled in by the guest agent when the structure is
returned, and always ignored on input (hence it can be omitted
then).
Since:
1.5
Command: guest-get-vcpus
Retrieve the list of the guest’s logical processors.
This is a read-only operation.
Returns:
The list of all VCPUs the guest knows about. Each VCPU is put on the
list exactly once, but their order is unspecified.
Since:
1.5
Command: guest-set-vcpus
Attempt to reconfigure (currently: enable/disable) logical processors inside
the guest.
The input list is processed node by node in order. In each node logical-id
is used to look up the guest VCPU, for which online specifies the requested
state. The set of distinct logical-id’s is only required to be a subset of
the guest-supported identifiers. There’s no restriction on list length or on
repeating the same logical-id (with possibly different online field).
Preferably the input list should describe a modified subset of
guest-get-vcpus’ return value.
Arguments:
vcpus: array of GuestLogicalProcessor
Not documented
Returns:
The length of the initial sublist that has been successfully
processed. The guest agent maximizes this value. Possible cases:
- 0: if the vcpus list was empty on input. Guest state
has not been changed. Otherwise,
- Error: processing the first node of vcpus failed for the
reason returned. Guest state has not been changed.
Otherwise,
- < length(vcpus): more than zero initial nodes have been processed,
but not the entire vcpus list. Guest state has
changed accordingly. To retrieve the error
(assuming it persists), repeat the call with the
successfully processed initial sublist removed.
Otherwise,
- length(vcpus): call successful.
Since:
1.5
Enum: GuestDiskBusType
An enumeration of bus type of disks
Values:
ide
IDE disks
fdc
floppy disks
scsi
SCSI disks
virtio
virtio disks
xen
Xen disks
usb
USB disks
uml
UML disks
sata
SATA disks
sd
SD cards
unknown
Unknown bus type
ieee1394
Win IEEE 1394 bus type
ssa
Win SSA bus type
fibre
Win fiber channel bus type
raid
Win RAID bus type
iscsi
Win iScsi bus type
sas
Win serial-attaches SCSI bus type
mmc
Win multimedia card (MMC) bus type
virtual
Win virtual bus type
file-backed virtual: Win file-backed bus type
file-backed-virtual
Not documented
Since:
2.2; ’Unknown’ and all entries below since 2.4
Object: GuestPCIAddress
Members:
domain: int
domain id
bus: int
bus id
slot: int
slot id
function: int
function id
Since:
2.2
Object: GuestDiskAddress
Members:
pci-controller: GuestPCIAddress
controller’s PCI address
bus-type: GuestDiskBusType
bus type
bus: int
bus id
target: int
target id
unit: int
unit id
Since:
2.2
Object: GuestFilesystemInfo
Members:
name: string
disk name
mountpoint: string
mount point path
type: string
file system type string
disk: array of GuestDiskAddress
an array of disk hardware information that the volume lies on,
which may be empty if the disk type is not supported
Since:
2.2
Command: guest-get-fsinfo
Returns:
The list of filesystems information mounted in the guest.
The returned mountpoints may be specified to
guest-fsfreeze-freeze-list.
Network filesystems (such as CIFS and NFS) are not listed.
Since:
2.2
Command: guest-set-user-password
Arguments:
username: string
the user account whose password to change
password: string
the new password entry string, base64 encoded
crypted: boolean
true if password is already crypt()d, false if raw
If the crypted flag is true, it is the caller’s responsibility
to ensure the correct crypt() encryption scheme is used. This
command does not attempt to interpret or report on the encryption
scheme. Refer to the documentation of the guest operating system
in question to determine what is supported.
Not all guest operating systems will support use of the
crypted flag, as they may require the clear-text password
The password parameter must always be base64 encoded before
transmission, even if already crypt()d, to ensure it is 8-bit
safe when passed as JSON.
Returns:
Nothing on success.
Since:
2.3
Object: GuestMemoryBlock
Members:
phys-index: int
Arbitrary guest-specific unique identifier of the MEMORY BLOCK.
online: boolean
Whether the MEMORY BLOCK is enabled in guest.
can-offline: boolean (optional)
Whether offlining the MEMORY BLOCK is possible.
This member is always filled in by the guest agent when the
structure is returned, and always ignored on input (hence it
can be omitted then).
Since:
2.3
Command: guest-get-memory-blocks
Retrieve the list of the guest’s memory blocks.
This is a read-only operation.
Returns:
The list of all memory blocks the guest knows about.
Each memory block is put on the list exactly once, but their order
is unspecified.
Since:
2.3
Enum: GuestMemoryBlockResponseType
An enumeration of memory block operation result.
Values:
success
the operation of online/offline memory block is successful.
not-found
can’t find the corresponding memoryXXX directory in sysfs.
operation-not-supported
for some old kernels, it does not support
online or offline memory block.
operation-failed
the operation of online/offline memory block fails,
because of some errors happen.
Since:
2.3
Object: GuestMemoryBlockResponse
Members:
phys-index: int
same with the ’phys-index’ member of GuestMemoryBlock.
response: GuestMemoryBlockResponseType
the result of memory block operation.
error-code: int (optional)
the error number.
When memory block operation fails, we assign the value of
’errno’ to this member, it indicates what goes wrong.
When the operation succeeds, it will be omitted.
Since:
2.3
Command: guest-set-memory-blocks
Attempt to reconfigure (currently: enable/disable) state of memory blocks
inside the guest.
The input list is processed node by node in order. In each node phys-index
is used to look up the guest MEMORY BLOCK, for which online specifies the
requested state. The set of distinct phys-index’s is only required to be a
subset of the guest-supported identifiers. There’s no restriction on list
length or on repeating the same phys-index (with possibly different online
field).
Preferably the input list should describe a modified subset of
guest-get-memory-blocks’ return value.
Arguments:
mem-blks: array of GuestMemoryBlock
Not documented
Returns:
The operation results, it is a list of GuestMemoryBlockResponse,
which is corresponding to the input list.
Note: it will return NULL if the mem-blks list was empty on input,
or there is an error, and in this case, guest state will not be
changed.
Since:
2.3
Object: GuestMemoryBlockInfo
Members:
size: int
the size (in bytes) of the guest memory blocks,
which are the minimal units of memory block online/offline
operations (also called Logical Memory Hotplug).
Since:
2.3
Command: guest-get-memory-block-info
Get information relating to guest memory blocks.
Returns:GuestMemoryBlockInfo
Since:
2.3
Object: GuestExecStatus
Members:
exited: boolean
true if process has already terminated.
exitcode: int (optional)
process exit code if it was normally terminated.
signal: int (optional)
signal number (linux) or unhandled exception code
(windows) if the process was abnormally terminated.
out-data: string (optional)
base64-encoded stdout of the process
err-data: string (optional)
base64-encoded stderr of the process
Note: out-data and err-data are present only
if ’capture-output’ was specified for ’guest-exec’
out-truncated: boolean (optional)
true if stdout was not fully captured
due to size limitation.
err-truncated: boolean (optional)
true if stderr was not fully captured
due to size limitation.
Since:
2.5
Command: guest-exec-status
Check status of process associated with PID retrieved via guest-exec.
Reap the process and associated metadata if it has exited.
Arguments:
pid: int
pid returned from guest-exec
Returns:
GuestExecStatus on success.
Since:
2.5
Object: GuestExec
Members:
pid: int
pid of child process in guest OS
Since:
2.5
Command: guest-exec
Execute a command in the guest
Arguments:
path: string
path or executable name to execute
arg: array of string (optional)
argument list to pass to executable
env: array of string (optional)
environment variables to pass to executable
input-data: string (optional)
data to be passed to process stdin (base64 encoded)
capture-output: boolean (optional)
bool flag to enable capture of
stdout/stderr of running process. defaults to false.
Returns:
PID on success.
Since:
2.5
Object: GuestHostName
Members:
host-name: string
Fully qualified domain name of the guest OS
Since:
2.10
Command: guest-get-host-name
Return a name for the machine.
The returned name is not necessarily a fully-qualified domain name, or even
present in DNS or some other name service at all. It need not even be unique
on your local network or site, but usually it is.
Returns:
the host name of the machine on success
Since:
2.10
Object: GuestUser
Members:
user: string
Username
domain: string (optional)
Logon domain (windows only)
login-time: number
Time of login of this user on the computer. If multiple
instances of the user are logged in, the earliest login time is
reported. The value is in fractional seconds since epoch time.
Since:
2.10
Command: guest-get-users
Retrieves a list of currently active users on the VM.
Returns:
A unique list of users.
Since:
2.10
Object: GuestTimezone
Members:
zone: string (optional)
Timezone name. These values may differ depending on guest/OS and
should only be used for informational purposes.
offset: int
Offset to UTC in seconds, negative numbers for time zones west of
GMT, positive numbers for east
Since:
2.10
Command: guest-get-timezone
Retrieves the timezone information from the guest.
Returns:
A GuestTimezone dictionary.
Since:
2.10
Object: GuestOSInfo
Members:
kernel-release: string (optional)
POSIX: release field returned by uname(2)
Windows: version number of the OS
kernel-version: string (optional)
POSIX: version field returned by uname(2)
Windows: build number of the OS
machine: string (optional)
POSIX: machine field returned by uname(2)
Windows: one of x86, x86_64, arm, ia64
id: string (optional)
POSIX: as defined by os-release(5)
Windows: contains string "mswindows"
name: string (optional)
POSIX: as defined by os-release(5)
Windows: contains string "Microsoft Windows"
pretty-name: string (optional)
POSIX: as defined by os-release(5)
Windows: product name, e.g. "Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise"
version: string (optional)
POSIX: as defined by os-release(5)
Windows: long version string, e.g. "Microsoft Windows Server 2008"
version-id: string (optional)
POSIX: as defined by os-release(5)
Windows: short version identifier, e.g. "7" or "20012r2"
variant: string (optional)
POSIX: as defined by os-release(5)
Windows: contains string "server" or "client"
variant-id: string (optional)
POSIX: as defined by os-release(5)
Windows: contains string "server" or "client"
Notes:
On POSIX systems the fields id, name, pretty-name, version, version-id,
variant and variant-id follow the definition specified in os-release(5).
Refer to the manual page for exact description of the fields. Their values
are taken from the os-release file. If the file is not present in the system,
or the values are not present in the file, the fields are not included.
On Windows the values are filled from information gathered from the system.