Managing A KVM Guest From The Command Line

KVM guests can be managed through virsh, the "virtual shell". To connect to the virtual shell, run

virsh --connect qemu:///system

This is how the virtual shell looks:

[root@server1 ~]# virsh --connect qemu:///system

Welcome to virsh, the virtualization interactive terminal.

Type:  'help' for help with commands
       'quit' to quit

You can now type in commands on the virtual shell to manage your guests. Run

help to get a list of available commands:

virsh # help

virsh #list

shows all running guests;

virsh #list --all

shows all guests, running and inactive:

virsh # list --all

 Id Name                 State
----------------------------------
  3 vm11                 running
  - vm10                 shut of

If you modify a guest's xml file (located in the /etc/libvirt/qemu/ directory), you must redefine the guest:

define /etc/libvirt/qemu/vm10.xml

Please note that whenever you modify the guest's xml file in /etc/libvirt/qemu/, you must run the define command again!
To start a stopped guest, run:

start vm10

To stop a guest, run

shutdown vm10

To immediately stop it (i.e., pull the power plug), run

destroy vm10

Suspend a guest:

suspend vm10

Resume a guest:

resume vm10

These are the most important commands.Type :

quit

to leave the virtual shell.