VMware Linux Server -- how can you tell if you are a vm or real hardware?

Question

An interesting question. I have logged into a Linux (most likely SuSE) host. Is there some way that I can tell programmatically that I am a VM host or not?

Also assume that the vmtools are not installed.

Answer 1

Use standard Linux tools to inspect the hardware on the system.

cat /proc/scsi/scsi

or

ethtool -i eth0

or

dmidecode | grep -i vmware

If the output of these commands shows hardware with a manufacturer name of "VMWare", you're on a VMWare VM. Multiple commands are provided here because system configurations and tools differ.

Answer 2

facter virtual 
xenu

indicates that it’s a VM. If it returned “physical” then the opposite is true (not a VM), eg:

facter virtual
Physical

Answer 3

You might be able to get and idea by looking around under /sys. For example /sys/class/dmi/id/sys_vendor has a value of VMware, Inc..

If it is installed you can use lshw. The command lshw -class system returns this on my system:

server1
    description: Computer
    product: VMware Virtual Platform
    vendor: VMware, Inc.
    version: None
    serial: VMware-...
    width: 64 bits
    capabilities: smbios-2.4 dmi-2.4 vsyscall64 vsyscall32

Answer 4

There is a handy app that might help called virt-what. I haven't used it with VMWare, but it did work nicely with Qemu.

Answer 5

Some virtual environments name some of their virtual devices with names that are a bit tell-tale, for example, VirtualBox presenting a graphics card that calls itself "VirtualBox Display Adapter". But looking for those ties you to a particular VM and possibly a narrow range of versions.

It might be possible for your code to see what sort of virtualisation it could set up. If that fails entirely, you might be in a VM. But you just as might easily be on a box that doesn't have any VM capable hardware.

Answer 6

For Linux you type dmesg |grep DMI:

VIRTUAL HOST OUTPUT

[root@myhost ~]# dmesg |grep DMI
DMI 2.3 present.
DMI: Microsoft Corporation Virtual Machine/Virtual Machine, BIOS 090006  05/23/2012
[root@myhost ~]# dmesg |grep -i virtual
DMI: Microsoft Corporation Virtual Machine/Virtual Machine, BIOS 090006  05/23/2012
Booting paravirtualized kernel on bare hardware
input: Macintosh mouse button emulation as /devices/virtual/input/input1
scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Msft     Virtual Disk     1.0  PQ: 0 ANSI: 4
input: Microsoft Vmbus HID-compliant Mouse as /devices/virtual/input/input4

FOR PHYSICAL HOST EXAMPLE

[root@backdev1 ~]# dmesg |grep DMI
DMI 2.5 present.
DMI: IBM System x3650 M3 -[7945AC1]-/90Y4784, BIOS -[D6E153AUS-1.12]- 06/30/2011

Answer 7

There's lots of code out there to detect if you're in a VM or not. Start with red pill and search from there. This paper at Offensive Computing is also a good read.

That's if none of those easy ones above work :)

Answer 8

You could also search the first part of your mac address here and see if it's listed as assigned to any of the virtualization companies.

Answer 9

Virtual devices will also be revealed by lspci and/or disk device info in /proc:

lspci | grep -i vmware

grep -i vmware /proc/scsi/scsi /proc/ide/*/model

Answer 10

In Linux, system information is revealed in /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/ . See my answer here for a handy script to show you all the information available.

root not required.

Answer 11

Things have changed somewhat in the nearly 11 years since this was asked.

If you are using a distro with systemd installed (wrt OPs original question, SLES has used systemd since v12), systemd-detect-virt will probably work, does not need root, and produces the most script-friendly output with no further massaging required:

$ systemd-detect-virt
vmware

Answer 12

I didn't like any of these solutions, as there's usually a VMware CDROM driver or memory driver installed so dmesg confirms or denies it for me quickly.

[server@user ~]$ dmesg |grep VMware
hda: VMware Virtual IDE CDROM Drive, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
Vendor: VMware    Model: Virtual disk      Rev: 1.0
Vendor: VMware    Model: Virtual disk      Rev: 1.0
Vendor: VMware    Model: Virtual disk      Rev: 1.0
Vendor: VMware    Model: Virtual disk      Rev: 1.0
Vendor: VMware    Model: Virtual disk      Rev: 1.0
Vendor: VMware    Model: Virtual disk      Rev: 1.0
Vendor: VMware    Model: Virtual disk      Rev: 1.0
VMware memory control driver initialized

Answer 13

This worked better for me as it gives me specific information about the manufacturer and the product name.

dmidecode -t system|grep 'Manufacturer\|Product'

Output on Dell server:

Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
Product Name: PowerEdge C5220

Output on Virtualbox VM:

Manufacturer: innotek GmbH
Product Name: VirtualBox

Output on KVM/QEMU:

Manufacturer: QEMU
Product Name: Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996)

This is great for scripts that can parse these out for better identification of servers... but if you use Chef in your infrastructure, you can check the node attribute Virtualization -> system in the chef server .

Answer 14

I like very much:

hostnamectl status 

or concrete:

hostnamectl status | grep "Chassis:"

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