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mdpc
Asked: 2009-09-16 15:21:22 +0800 CST

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

  • 772

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.

linux

14 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    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.

    • 29 
  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
    • 13

  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
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  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.

    • 11

  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.

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  6. 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 :)

    • 4

  7. 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
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  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.

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  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
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  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.

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