VIRT-WHO(8)

System Manager's Manual

VIRT-WHO(8)

NAME¶

virt-who - Agent for reporting virtual guest IDs to Subscription Asset Manager, Satellite 6, or Satellite 5.

SYNOPSIS¶

OPTIONS¶

-h, --help: show this help message and exit
-d, --debug: Enable debugging output
-o, --one-shot: Send the list of guest IDs and exit immediately
-i INTERVAL, --interval=INTERVAL: Acquire and send guest information each N seconds; note that this option is recommendation only, requested interval might not been honoured and the actual interval might be longer or shorter depending on backend that is used.
-p, --print: Print the host/guests association in JSON format to standard output
-c, --config: Use configuration file directly, can be used multiple times. See virt-who-config(5) for details about configuration file format.

Virtualization backend¶

: Choose virtualization backend that should be used to gather host/guest associations

--libvirt: [Deprecated] Use libvirt to list virtual guests [default]
--vdsm: [Deprecated] Use vdsm to list virtual guests
--esx: [Deprecated] Register ESX machines using vCenter
--rhevm: [Deprecated] Register guests using RHEV-M
--hyperv: [Deprecated] Register guests using Hyper-V
--xen: [Deprecated] Register XEN machines using XenServer

Subscription manager¶

: Choose where the host/guest associations should be reported

--sam: [Deprecated] Report host/guest associations to the Subscription Asset Manager or Satellite 6 [default]
--satellite5: [Deprecated] Report host/guest associations to the Satellite 5 server

: --satellite6 [Deprecated] Report host/guest associations to the Satellite 6 server

Libvirt options¶

: Use these options with --libvirt These should be defined in the configuration file or in environment variables

--libvirt-owner=OWNER: [Deprecated] Organization who has purchased subscriptions of the products, same as current system registration by default
--libvirt-env=ENV: [Deprecated] Environment where the libvirt server belongs to, same as current system registration by default
--libvirt-server=SERVER: [Deprecated] URL of the remote libvirt server to connect to, local server by default
--libvirt-username=USERNAME: [Deprecated] Username for connecting to libvirt, username of current user by default
--libvirt-password=PASSWORD: [Deprecated] Password for connecting to libvirt. This option doesn't work with ssh transport (default), copy your public ssh key to the remote machine.

vCenter/ESX options¶

: Use these options with --esx These should be defined in the configuration file or in environment variables

--esx-owner=OWNER: [Deprecated] Organization who has purchased subscriptions of the products
--esx-env=ENV: [Deprecated] Environment where the vCenter server belongs to
--esx-server=SERVER: [Deprecated] URL of the vCenter server to connect to
--esx-username=USERNAME: [Deprecated] Username for connecting to vCenter
--esx-password=PASSWORD: [Deprecated] Password for connecting to vCenter

RHEV-M options¶

: Use these options with --rhevm These should be defined in the configuration file or in environment variables

--rhevm-owner=OWNER: [Deprecated] Organization who has purchased subscriptions of the products
--rhevm-env=ENV: [Deprecated] Environment where the RHEV-M belongs to
--rhevm-server=SERVER: [Deprecated] URL of the RHEV-M server to connect to
--rhevm-username=USERNAME: [Deprecated] Username for connecting to RHEV-M
--rhevm-password=PASSWORD: [Deprecated] Password for connecting to RHEV-M

Hyper-V options¶

: Use these options with --hyperv These should be defined in the configuration file or in environment variables

--hyperv-owner=OWNER: [Deprecated] Organization who has purchased subscriptions of the products
--hyperv-env=ENV: [Deprecated] Environment where the Hyper-V belongs to
--hyperv-server=SERVER: [Deprecated] URL of the Hyper-V server to connect to
--hyperv-username=USERNAME: [Deprecated] Username for connecting to Hyper-V
--hyperv-password=PASSWORD: [Deprecated] Password for connecting to Hyper-V

XenServer options¶

: Use these options with --xen These should be defined in the configuration file or in environment variables

--xen-owner=OWNER: [Deprecated] Organization who has purchased subscriptions of the products
--xen-env=ENV: [Deprecated] Environment where the XenServer belongs to
--xen-server=SERVER: [Deprecated] URL of the XenServer server to connect to
--xen-username=USERNAME: [Deprecated] Username for connecting to XenServer
--xen-password=PASSWORD: [Deprecated] Password for connecting to XenServer

Satellite 5 options:¶

: Use these options with --satellite5 These should be defined in the configuration file or in environment variables

--satellite-server=SAT_SERVER: [Deprecated] Satellite server URL
--satellite-username=SAT_USERNAME: [Deprecated] Username for connecting to Satellite server
--satellite-password=SAT_PASSWORD: [Deprecated] Password for connecting to Satellite server

ENVIRONMENT¶

virt-who also reads environmental variables. They have the same name as command line arguments but upper-cased, with underscore instead of dash and prefixed with VIRTWHO_ (e.g. VIRTWHO_ONE_SHOT). Empty variables are considered as disabled, non-empty as enabled

USAGE¶

MODE¶

virt-who has three modes how it can run:

1. one-shot mode

# virt-who -o

In this mode virt-who just sends the host to guest association to the server once and then exits.

2. interval mode

# virt-who

This is default mode. virt-who will listen to change events (if available) or do a polling with given interval, and will send the host to guest association when it changes. The default polling interval is 60 seconds and can be changed using "-i INTERVAL" (in seconds).

3. print mode

# virt-who -p

This mode is similar to oneshot mode but the host to guest association is not send to server, but printed to standard output instead.

VIRTUALIZATION BACKEND¶

virt-who can use couple of virtualization backends.

1. libvirt

# virt-who

# virt-who --libvirt

Use libvirt as virtualization backend. This is default.

: NOTE: virt-who can monitor for events only in this mode.

2. vdsm

# virt-who --vdsm

Use vdsm as virtualization backend.

3. ESX

# virt-who --esx --esx-owner=ESX_OWNER --esx-env=ESX_ENV --esx-server=ESX_SERVER --esx-username=ESX_USERNAME --esx-password=ESX_PASSWORD

Use ESX (vCenter) as virtualization backend and specify option required to connect to ESX server.

4. RHEV-M

# virt-who --rhevm --rhevm-owner=RHEVM_OWNER --rhevm-env=RHEVM_ENV --rhevm-server=RHEVM_SERVER --rhevm-username=RHEVM_USERNAME --rhevm-password=RHEVM_PASSWORD

Use RHEV-M as virtualization backend and specify option required to connect to RHEV-M server.

5. Hyper-V

# virt-who --hyperv --hyperv-owner=HYPERV_OWNER --hyperv-env=HYPERV_ENV --hyperv-server=HYPERV_SERVER --hyperv-username=HYPERV_USERNAME --hyperv-password=HYPERV_PASSWORD

Use Hyper-V as virtualization backend and specify option required to connect to Hyper-V server.

6. XenServer

# virt-who --xen --xen-owner=XEN_OWNER --xen-env=XEN_ENV --xen-server=XEN_SERVER --xen-username=XEN_USERNAME --xen-password=XEN_PASSWORD

Use Citrix XenServer as virtualization backend and specify option required to connect to XenServer server.

7. Fake

Fake virtualization backend fetches the host/guests association from file. This can be useful in environments where the hypervisor is not accessible by virt-who. It's only available through configuration file, see virt-who-config(5) for details about configuration of this backend.

SUBSCRIPTION MANAGER¶

virt-who can report host/guest associations to Subscription Asset Manager (SAM), to Satellite 5, or to Satellite 6.

1. Subscription Asset Manager or Satellite 6

# virt-who

# virt-who --sam

System must be registered using subscription-manager prior to using virt-who. Configuration for connecting to SAM is shared between subscription-manager and virt-who. This is default.

2. Satellite 6

# virt-who --satellite6

System must be registered using subscription-manager prior to using virt-who. Configuration for connecting to Satellite 6 is shared between subscription-manager and virt-who.

2. Satellite 5

# virt-who --satellite5 --satellite-server=SAT_SERVER --satellite-username=SAT_USERNAME --satellite-password=SAT_PASSWORD

This option can't be used for monitoring local guests, use rhn-virtualization-host instead.

LOGGING¶

virt-who always writes error output to file /var/log/rhsm/rhsm.log. It also writes the same output to standard error output when started from command line.

virt-who can be started with option "-d" in all modes and with all backends. This option will enable verbose output with more information.

SECURITY¶

Virt-who may present security concerns in some scenarios because it needs access to every hypervisor in the environment. To minimize security risk, virt-who is a network client, not a server. It only does outbound connections to find and register new hypervisors and does not need access to any virtual machines. To further reduce risk, deploy virt-who in a small virtual machine with a minimal installation and lock it down from any unsolicited inbound network connections.

Here is a list of ports that need to be open for different hypervisors:

VMWare ESX/vCenter: 443/tcp
Hyper-V: 5985/tcp
RHEV-M: 443/tcp or 8443/tcp (depending on version)
XenServer: 443/tcp
libvirt: depending on transport type, default (for remote connections) is qemu over ssh on port 22
local libvirt and vdsm use local connections and don't need open ports

virt-who also needs to have access to Subscription Asset Manager, Satellite 5, or Satellite 6. Default port is 443/tcp. All the ports might be changed by system administrators.

Using the same network for machine running virt-who as for hypervisor management software instead of production VM networks is suggested.

AUTHOR¶

Radek Novacek <rnovacek at redhat dot com>

April 2016

virt-who

Source file:	virt-who.8.en.gz (from virt-who 0.21.6-1.el6)
Source last updated:	2018-06-21 21:56:24
Converted to HTML:	2023-06-08 08:52:11