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virt-top - 'top'-like utility for virtualization stats
Contents
Column Headings
%CPU
Percentage of CPU used. As with top(1), 100% means that all physical CPUs are being fully used.
DEVICE
The block device name.
DOMAINNAME
The name of the libvirt domain.
ID The libvirt domain ID.
INTERFACE
The network interface name.
%MEM
The percentage of host memory assigned to the guest.
PHYCPU
The physical CPU.
RDBY
Disk bytes read since last displayed.
RDRQ
Disk read requests since last displayed.
RXBY
Network bytes received since last displayed.
RXPK
Network packets received since last displayed.
S The state of the domain, one of:
? Unknown.
R Running.
S Blocked.
P Paused.
DO Shutdown.
X Crashed.
M Suspended by guest power management.
TIME
Total CPU time used.
TXBY
Network bytes transmitted since last displayed.
TXPK
Network packets transmitted since last displayed.
WRBY
Disk bytes written since last displayed.
WRRQ
Disk write requests since last displayed.
Copyright
(C) Copyright 2007-2012 Red Hat Inc., Richard W.M. Jones http://libvirt.org/
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU
General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even
the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write
to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
Description
virt-top is a top(1)-like utility for showing stats of virtualized domains. Many keys and command line
options are the same as for ordinary top.
It uses libvirt so it is capable of showing stats across a variety of different virtualization systems.
Init File
When virt-top starts up, it reads initial settings from the file .virt-toprc in the user's home
directory.
The name of this file may be overridden using the --init-filefilename command line option or may be
disabled entirely using --no-init-file.
The init file has a simple format. Blank lines and comments beginning with # are ignored. Everything
else is a set of keyvalue pairs, described below.
displaytask|pcpu|block|net
Sets the major display mode to one of task (tasks, the default), pcpu (physical CPUs), block (block
devices), or net (network interfaces).
delaysecs
Sets the delay between display updates in seconds.
hist-cpusecs
Sets the historical CPU delay in seconds.
iterationsn
Sets the number of iterations to run before we exit. Setting this to -1 means to run continuously.
sortcpu|mem|time|id|name|...
Sets the sort order. The option names are the same as for the command line -o option.
connecturi
Sets the default connection URI.
debugfilename
Sets the default filename to use for debug and error messages.
csvfilename
Enables CSV output to the named file.
csv-cputrue|false
Enable or disable domain CPU stats in CSV output.
csv-memtrue|false
Enable or disable domain memory stats in CSV output.
csv-blocktrue|false
Enable or disable domain block device stats in CSV output.
csv-nettrue|false
Enable or disable domain network interface stats in CSV output.
batchtrue|false
Sets batch mode.
securetrue|false
Sets secure mode.
scripttrue|false
Sets script mode.
streamtrue|false
Sets stream mode.
block-in-bytestrue|false
Show block device statistics in bytes.
end-timetime
Set the time at which the program exits. See above for the time formats supported.
overwrite-init-filefalse
If set to false then the W key will not overwrite the init file.
Note that in the current implementation, options specified in the init file override options specified on
the command line. This is a bug and this behaviour may change in the future.
Keys
Note that keys are case sensitive. For example use upper-case P (shift P) to sort by %CPU. ^ before a
key means a Ctrl key, so ^L is Ctrl L.
space or ^L
Updates the display.
q Quits the program.
h Displays help.
s or d
Change the delay between screen updates.
B Toggle Block I/O statistics so they are shown in either bytes or requests.
0 (number 0)
Show the normal list of domains display.
1 (number 1)
Toggle into showing physical CPUs. If pressed again toggles back to showing domains (the normal
display).
2 Toggle into showing network interfaces. If pressed again toggles back to showing domains.
3 Toggle into showing block devices (virtual disks). If pressed again toggles back to showing domains.
P Sort by %CPU.
M Sort by total memory. Note that this shows the total memory allocated to the guest, not the memory
being used.
T Sort by total time.
N Sort by domain ID.
F Select the sort field interactively (there are other sort fields you can choose using this key).
W This creates or overwrites the init file with the current settings.
This key is disabled if --no-init-file was specified on the command line or if overwrite-init-filefalse is given in the init file.
Name
virt-top - 'top'-like utility for virtualization stats
Notes
BlockI/Ostatistics
This I/O value is the amount of I/O since the previous iteration of virt-top. To calculate speed of I/O,
you should divide the number by delay secs.
NETWORKRXBYTESANDPACKETS
Libvirt/virt-top has no way to know that a packet transmitted to a guest was received (eg. if the guest
is not listening). In the network RX stats, virt-top reports the packets transmitted to the guest, on
the basis that the guest might receive them.
In particular this includes broadcast packets. Because of the way that Linux bridges work, if the guest
is connected to a bridge, it will probably see a steady "background noise" of RX packets even when the
network interface is idle or down. These are caused by STP packets generated by the bridge.
DEBUGGINGLIBVIRTISSUES
virt-top tries to turn libvirt errors into informative messages. However if libvirt initialization fails
then this is not possible. Instead you will get an obscure error like:
libvir: error : Unknown failure
Fatal error: exception Libvirt.Virterror(...)
To see the cause of libvirt errors in more detail, enable libvirt debugging by setting this environment
variable:
export LIBVIRT_DEBUG=1
Options
-1 Display physical CPUs by default (instead of domains).
Under each domain column, two numbers are shown. The first is the percentage of the physical CPU
used by the domain and the hypervisor together. The second is the percentage used by just the
domain.
When virt-top is running, use the 1 key to toggle between physical CPUs and domains display.
-2 Display network interfaces by default (instead of domains). When virt-top is running, use the 2 key
to toggle between network interfaces and domains display.
-3 Display block devices (virtual disks) by default (instead of domains). When virt-top is running, use
the 3 key to toggle between block devices and domains display.
-b Batch mode. In this mode keypresses are ignored.
-curi or --connecturi
Connect to the libvirt URI given.
To connect to QEMU/KVM you would normally do -cqemu:///system
To connect to Xen on the same host, do -cxen:///
To connect to libvirtd on a remote machine you would normally do -cqemu://host/system
If this option is not given then virt-top connects by default to whatever is the default hypervisor
for libvirt, although this can be overridden by setting environment variables.
See the libvirt documentation at <http://libvirt.org/uri.html> for further information.
-ddelay
Set the delay between screen updates in seconds. The default is 3.0 seconds. You can change this
while virt-top is running by pressing either s or d key.
-niterations
Set the number of iterations to run. The default is to run continuously.
-osort
Set the sort order to one of: cpu (sort by %CPU used), mem (sort by total memory), time (sort by
total time), id (sort by domain ID), name (sort by domain name), netrx (sort by network received
bytes), nettx (sort by network transmitted bytes), blockrdrq (sort by block device [disk] read
requests), blockwrrq (sort by block device [disk] write requests).
While virt-top is running you can change the sort order using keys P (cpu), M (memory), T (total
time), N (domain ID), F (interactively select the sort field).
-s Secure mode. Currently this does nothing.
--hist-cpusecs
Set the time in seconds between updates of the historical %CPU at the top right of the display.
--csvfile.csv
Write the statistics to file file.csv. First a header is written showing the statistics being
recorded in each column, then one line is written for each screen update. The CSV file can be loaded
directly by most spreadsheet programs.
Currently the statistics which this records vary between releases of virt-top (but the column headers
will stay the same, so you can use those to process the CSV file).
To save space you can compress your CSV files (if your shell supports this feature, eg. bash):
virt-top --csv >(gzip -9 > output.csv.gz)
You can use a similar trick to split the CSV file up. In this example the CSV file is split every
1000 lines into files called output.csv.00, output.csv.01 etc.
virt-top --csv >(split -d -l 1000 - output.csv.)
--no-csv-cpu
Disable domain CPU stats in CSV output.
--no-csv-mem
Disable domain memory stats in CSV output.
--no-csv-block
Disable domain block device stats in CSV output.
--no-csv-net
Disable domain network interface stats in CSV output.
--debugfilename
Send debug and error messages to filename. To send error messages to syslog you can do:
virt-top --debug >(logger -t virt-top)
See also REPORTING BUGS below.
--init-filefilename
Read filename as the init file instead of the default which is $HOME/.virt-toprc. See also INIT FILE
below.
--no-init-file
Do not read any init file.
--script
Script mode. There will be no user interface. This is most useful when used together with the --csv
and -n options.
--stream
Stream mode. All output is sent to stdout. This can be used from shell scripts etc. There is no
user interface.
--block-in-bytes
Show I/O statistics in Bytes. Default is shown in the number of Requests.
--end-timetime
The program will exit at the time given.
The time may be given in one of the following formats:
YYYY-MM-DDHH:MM:SS
End time is the date and time given.
HH:MM:SS
End time is the time given, today.
+HH:MM:SS
End time is HH hours, MM minutes, SS seconds in the future (counted from the moment that program
starts).
+secs
End time is secs seconds in the future.
For example to run the program for 3 minutes you could do:
virt-top --end-time +00:03:00
or:
virt-top --end-time +180
Not every version of virt-top supports this option - it depends how the program was compiled (see
README file in the source distribution for details).
--help
Display usage summary.
--version
Display version number and exit.
Reporting Bugs
Bugs can be viewed on the Red Hat Bugzilla page: <https://bugzilla.redhat.com/>.
If you find a bug in virt-top, please follow these steps to report it:
1. Check for existing bug reports
Go to <https://bugzilla.redhat.com/> and search for similar bugs. Someone may already have reported
the same bug, and they may even have fixed it.
2. Capture debug and error messages
Run
virt-top --debug virt-top.log
and keep virt-top.log. It contains error messages which you should submit with your bug report.
3. Get version of virt-top and version of libvirt.
Use:
virt-top --version
If you can get the precise version of libvirt you are using then that too is helpful.
4. Submit a bug report.
Go to <https://bugzilla.redhat.com/> and enter a new bug. Please describe the problem in as much
detail as possible.
Remember to include the version numbers (step 3) and the debug messages file (step 2).
5. Assign the bug to rjones @ redhat.com
Assign or reassign the bug to rjones@redhat.com (without the spaces). You can also send me an
email with the bug number if you want a faster response.
virt-top-1.1.1 2023-09-09 VIRT-TOP(1)
See Also
top(1), virsh(1), <http://www.libvirt.org/ocaml/>, <http://www.libvirt.org/>, <http://people.redhat.com/~rjones/>, <http://caml.inria.fr/>
Summary
virt-top [-options]
PNG Icons
