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inac
Asked: 2010-06-22 20:12:46 +0800 CST

Dedicated Server or Actually Virtual?

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Is there a way to know for sure that your remote-ly hosted server is actually a dedicated, and not just a virtual, "faking" to be a dedicated? What are some possible shell commands to run to test this?

virtualization dedicated-server

4 Answers

  1. "lspci", the unix command, would be the easiest method. It lists the hardware the machine is running on, and if you see things like "Vmware", then the machine is likely not dedicated. However, if the hardware looks like the hardware you are supposed to have, then it's most likely a dedicated machine.

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  2. Linux or windows?

    if Linux:

    1: uname -a and check the kernel version - some virtualization software such as Xen will put -xen in the kernel name. 2: type: dmesg and look for traces of vmware, xen, citrix etc, for example my vmware vm shows: [ 16.560987] VMware memory control driver initialized [ 16.560987] vmmemctl: started kernel thread pid=3227

    as one example. another exmaple: [ 4.051578] scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access VMware Virtual disk 1.0 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2

    in windows check device manager and check the items, some will say vmware disk or things like that.

    hope this helps.

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  3. Also in Windows you can check installed applications for vm-ware tools or equivalent. These are not always installed though

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  4. In linux/freebsd: dmesg|grep -i vmware (or xen, kvm, etc)

    In windows: Alt+r (run command), msinfo32. Look at the hardware description on the right side.

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