QEMU Guest Agent Protocol Reference

Table of Contents

QEMU Guest Agent protocol reference

1 API Reference

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. As this command is just for limited, ad-hoc debugging, such as log file access, the number of bytes to read is limited to 48 MB.

Arguments:

handle: int

filehandle returned by guest-file-open

count: int (optional)

maximum number of bytes to read (default is 4KB, maximum is 48MB)

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. If no filesystems are frozen as a result of this call, then guest-fsfreeze-status will remain "thawed" and calling guest-fsfreeze-thaw is not necessary.

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 attempts to suspend the guest using three strategies, in this order:

• - systemd hibernate
• - pm-utils (via pm-hibernate)
• - manual write into sysfs

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 attempts to suspend the guest using three strategies, in this order:

• - systemd suspend
• - pm-utils (via pm-suspend)
• - manual write into sysfs

IMPORTANT: guest-suspend-ram requires working wakeup support in QEMU. You should check QMP command query-current-machine returns wakeup-suspend-support: true before issuing this command. Failure in doing so can result in a suspended guest that QEMU will not be able to awaken, forcing the user to power cycle the guest to bring it back.

This command does NOT return a response on success. There are two options to check for success:

1. Wait for the SUSPEND QMP event from QEMU
2. 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 attempts to suspend the guest by executing, in this order:

• - systemd hybrid-sleep
• - pm-utils (via pm-suspend-hybrid)

IMPORTANT: guest-suspend-hybrid requires working wakeup support in QEMU. You should check QMP command query-current-machine returns wakeup-suspend-support: true before issuing this command. Failure in doing so can result in a suspended guest that QEMU will not be able to awaken, forcing the user to power cycle the guest to bring it back.

This command does NOT return a response on success. There are two options to check for success:

1. Wait for the SUSPEND QMP event from QEMU
2. 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

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

serial: string (optional)

serial number (since: 3.1)

dev: string (optional)

device node (POSIX) or device UNC (Windows) (since: 3.1)

Since: 2.2

Object: GuestFilesystemInfo

Members:

name: string

disk name

mountpoint: string

mount point path

type: string

file system type string

used-bytes: int (optional)

file system used bytes (since 3.0)

total-bytes: int (optional)

non-root file system total bytes (since 3.0)

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: build number of the OS

kernel-version: string (optional)

• POSIX: version field returned by uname(2)
• Windows: version 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.

Since: 2.10

Command: guest-get-osinfo

Retrieve guest operating system information

Returns: GuestOSInfo

Since: 2.10

Commands and Events Index

Data Types Index