Command line tools - PVE 3.x

Introduction

This page lists the important Proxmox VE and Debian command line tools. All CLI tools have also manual pages.

OpenVZ specific

user_beancounters

cat /proc/user_beancounters

Backup

vzdump

vzdump - backup utility for virtual machine

USAGE: vzdump OPTIONS [--all | <VMID>]

(where <VMID> is the ID pve assigns to each virtual machine created)

OPTIONS:

--exclude VMID #exclude VMID (assumes :--all)

--exclude-path REGEX #exclude certain files/directories. You can use this option more than once to specify multiple exclude paths

--stdexcludes #exclude temporary files and logs

--compress #compress dump file (gzip)

--storage STORAGE_ID #store resulting files to STORAGE_ID (PVE only)

--script #execute hook script

--dumpdir DIR #store resulting files in DIR

--maxfiles N #maximal number of backup files per VM.

--tmpdir DIR #store temporary files in DIR. :--suspend and :--stop are using this directory to store a copy of the VM.

--mailto EMAIL #send notification mail to EMAIL. You can use this option more than once to specify multiple receivers

--stop #stop/start VM if running

--suspend #suspend/resume VM when running

--snapshot #use LVM snapshot when running

--size MB #LVM snapshot size (default 1024)

--bwlimit KBPS #limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second

--lockwait MINUTES #maximal time to wait for the global lock. vzdump uses a global lock file to make sure that only one instance is running (running several instance puts too much load on a server). Default is 180 (3 hours).

--stopwait MINUTES #maximal time to wait until a VM is stopped.

Cluster management

pveca

PVE Cluster Administration Toolkit

USAGE: (man page)

• pveca -l # show cluster status
• pveca -c # create new cluster with localhost as master
• pveca -s [-h IP] # sync cluster configuration from master (or IP)
• pveca -d ID # delete a node
• pveca -a [-h IP] # add new node to cluster
• pveca -m # force local node to become master
• pveca -i # print node info (CID NAME IP ROLE)

Software version check

pveversion

Proxmox VE version info - Print version information for Proxmox VE packages.

USAGE: pveversion [--verbose]

• without any argument shows the version of pve-manager, something like:

pve-manager/1.5/4660

• with -v argument it shows a list of programs versions related to pve, like:

pve-manager: 1.5-7 (pve-manager/1.5/4660)

running kernel: 2.6.18-2-pve

proxmox-ve-2.6.18: 1.5-5

pve-kernel-2.6.18-2-pve: 2.6.18-5

pve-kernel-2.6.18-1-pve: 2.6.18-4

qemu-server: 1.1-11

pve-firmware: 1.0-3

libpve-storage-perl: 1.0-10

vncterm: 0.9-2

vzctl: 3.0.23-1pve8

vzdump: 1.2-5

vzprocps: 2.0.11-1dso2

vzquota: 3.0.11-1

pve-qemu-kvm-2.6.18: 0.9.1-5

aptitude

Standard Debian package update tool

DRBD

See DRBD

Debian Appliance Builder

dab

See Debian_Appliance_Builder

Other useful tools

pveperf

Simple host performance test.

(from man page)

USAGE

pveperf [PATH]

DESCRIPTION

Tries to gather some CPU/Hardisk performance data on the hardisk mounted at PATH (/ is used as default)

It dumps on the terminal:

• CPU BOGOMIPS: bogomips sum of all CPUs
• REGEX/SECOND: regular expressions per second (perl performance test), should be above 300000
• HD SIZE: harddisk size
• BUFFERED READS: simple HD read test. Modern HDs should reach at least 40 MB/sec
• AVERAGE SEEK TIME: tests average seek time. Fast SCSI HDs reach values < 8 milliseconds. Common IDE/SATA disks get values from 15 to 20 ms.
• FSYNCS/SECOND: value should be greater than 200 (you should enable "write back" cache mode on you RAID controller - needs a battery backed cache (BBWC)).
• DNS EXT: average time to resolve an external DNS name
• DNS INT: average time to resolve a local DNS name

Note: this command may require root privileges (or sudo) to run, otherwise you get an error after "HD SIZE" value, like: <<sh: /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches: Permission denied unable to open HD at /usr/bin/pveperf line 149.>>