Proxmox Cheat-Sheet
Proxmox Virtual Environment (Proxmox VE or PVE) is a hyper-converged infrastructure open-source software. It is a hosted hypervisor that can run operating systems including Linux and Windows on x64 hardware. It is a Debian-based Linux distribution with a modified Ubuntu LTS kernel and allows deployment and management of virtual machines and containers. Proxmox VE includes a web console and command-line tools, and provides a REST API for third-party tools. Two types of virtualization are supported: container-based with LXC (starting from version 4.0 replacing OpenVZ used in version up to 3.4, included), and full virtualization with KVM. It includes a web-based management interface.
Proxmox VE is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3.
Repository: https://git.proxmox.com
Website: https://pve.proxmox.com
VM Management
| Command |
Command Description |
qm list |
list VMs |
qm create VM_ID |
Create or restore a virtual machine. |
qm start VM_ID |
Start a VM |
qm suspend VM_ID |
Suspend virtual machine. |
qm shutdown VM_ID |
Shutdown a VM |
qm reboot VM_ID |
Reboot a VM |
qm reset VM_ID |
Reset a VM |
qm stop VM_ID |
Stop a VM |
qm destroy VM_ID |
Destroy the VM and all used/owned volumes. |
qm monitor VM_ID |
Enter Qemu Monitor interface. |
qm pending VM_ID |
Get the virtual machine configuration with both current and pending values. |
qm sendkey VM_ID YOUR_KEY_EVENT [OPTIONS] |
Send key event to virtual machine. |
qm showcmd VM_ID [OPTIONS] |
Show command line used to start the VM (debug info). |
qm unlock VM_ID |
Unlock the VM |
qm clone VM_ID NEW_VM_ID |
Clone a VM |
qm migrate VM_ID TARGET_NODE |
Migrate a VM |
qm status VM_ID |
Show VM status |
qm cleanup VM_ID CLEAN_SHUTDOWN GUEST_REQUESTED |
Clean up resources for a VM |
qm template VM_ID [OPTIONS] |
Create a Template |
qm set VM_ID [OPTIONS] |
Set virtual machine options (synchronous API) |
Cloudinit
| Command |
Command Description |
qm cloudinit dump VM_ID VM_TYPE |
Get automatically generated cloudinit config. |
qm cloudinit pending VM_ID |
Get the cloudinit configuration with both current and pending values. |
qm cloudinit update VM_ID |
Regenerate and change cloudinit config drive. |
Disk
| Command |
Command Description |
qm disk import VM_ID TARGET_SOURCE TARGET_STORAGE |
Import an external disk image as an unused disk in a VM. |
qm disk move VM_ID VM_DISK [STORAGE] [OPTIONS] |
Move volume to different storage or to a different VM. |
qm disk rescan [OPTIONS] |
Rescan all storages and update disk sizes and unused disk images. |
qm disk resize VM_ID VM_DISK SIZE [OPTIONS] |
Extend volume size. |
qm disk unlink VM_ID --IDLIST STRING [OPTIONS] |
Unlink/delete disk images. |
qm rescan |
Rescan volumes. |
Snapshot
| Command |
Command Description |
qm listsnapshot VM_ID |
List all snapshots. |
qm snapshot VM_ID SNAPNAME |
Snapshot a VM. |
qm delsnapshot VM_ID SNAPNAME |
Delete a snapshot. |
qm rollback VM_ID SNAPNAME |
Rollback a snapshot. |
qm terminal VM_ID [OPTIONS] |
Open a terminal using a serial device. |
qm vncproxy VM_ID |
Proxy VM VNC traffic to stdin/stdout. |
Misc
| Command |
Command Description |
qm guest cmd VM_ID COMMAND |
Execute Qemu Guest Agent commands. |
qm guest exec VM_ID [EXTRA-ARGS] [OPTIONS] |
Executes the given command via the guest agent. |
qm guest exec-status VM_ID PID |
Gets the status of the given pid started by the guest-agent. |
qm guest passwd VM_ID USERNAME [OPTIONS] |
Sets the password for the given user to the given password. |
PV, VG, LV Management
| Command |
Command Description |
pvcreate DISK-DEVICE-NAME |
Create a PV |
pvremove DISK-DEVICE-NAME |
Remove a PV |
pvs |
List all PVs |
vgcreate VG-NAME DISK-DEVICE-NAME |
Create a VG |
vgremove VG-NAME |
Remove a VG |
vgs |
List all VGs |
lvcreate -L LV-SIZE -n LV-NAME VG-NAME |
Create a LV |
lvremove VG-NAME/LV-NAME |
Remove a LV |
lvs |
List all LVs |
Storage Management
| Command |
Command Description |
pvesm add TYPE STORAGE [OPTIONS] |
Create a new storage |
pvesm alloc STORAGE your-vm-id FILENAME SIZE [OPTIONS] |
Allocate disk images |
pvesm free VOLUME [OPTIONS] |
Delete volume |
pvesm remove STORAGE |
Delete storage configuration |
pvesm list STORAGE [OPTIONS] |
List storage content |
pvesm lvmscan |
An alias for pvesm scan lvm |
pvesm lvmthinscan |
An alias for pvesm scan lvmthin |
pvesm scan lvm |
List local LVM volume groups |
pvesm scan lvmthin VG |
List local LVM Thin Pools |
pvesm status [OPTIONS] |
Get status for all datastores |
Template Management
| Command |
Command Description |
pveam available |
List all templates |
pveam list STORAGE |
List all templates |
pveam download STORAGE TEMPLATE |
Download appliance templates |
pveam remove TEMPLATE-PATH |
Remove a template |
pveam update |
Update Container Template Database |
Certificate Management
See the Proxmox Certificate Management cheat sheet.
Container Management
| Command |
Command Description |
pct list |
List containers |
pct create YOUR-VM-ID OSTEMPLATE [OPTIONS] |
Create or restore a container |
pct start YOUR-VM-ID [OPTIONS] |
Start the container |
pct clone YOUR-VM-ID NEW-VM-ID [OPTIONS] |
Create a container clone/copy |
pct suspend YOUR-VM-ID |
Suspend the container. This is experimental. |
pct resume YOUR-VM-ID |
Resume the container |
pct stop YOUR-VM-ID [OPTIONS] |
Stop the container. This will abruptly stop all processes running in the container. |
pct shutdown YOUR-VM-ID [OPTIONS] |
Shutdown the container. This will trigger a clean shutdown of the container. |
pct destroy YOUR-VM-ID [OPTIONS] |
Destroy the container (also delete all uses files) |
pct status YOUR-VM-ID [OPTIONS] |
Show CT status |
pct migrate YOUR-VM-ID TARGET [OPTIONS] |
Migrate the container to another node. Creates a new migration task. |
pct config YOUR-VM-ID [OPTIONS] |
Get container configuration |
pct cpusets |
Print the list of assigned CPU sets |
pct pending YOUR-VM-ID |
Get container configuration, including pending changes |
pct reboot YOUR-VM-ID [OPTIONS] |
Reboot the container by shutting it down and starting it again. Applies pending changes. |
pct restore YOUR-VM-ID OSTEMPLATE [OPTIONS] |
Create or restore a container |
pct set YOUR-VM-ID [OPTIONS] |
Set container options |
pct template YOUR-VM-ID |
Create a Template |
pct unlock YOUR-VM-ID |
Unlock the VM |
Container Disks
| Command |
Command Description |
pct df YOUR-VM-ID |
Get the container’s current disk usage |
pct fsck YOUR-VM-ID [OPTIONS] |
Run a filesystem check (fsck) on a container volume |
pct fstrim YOUR-VM-ID [OPTIONS] |
Run fstrim on a chosen CT and its mountpoints |
pct mount YOUR-VM-ID |
Mount the container’s filesystem on the host |
pct move-volume YOUR-VM-ID VOLUME [STORAGE] [TARGET-VMID] [TARGET-VOLUME] [OPTIONS] |
Move a rootfs-/mp-volume to a different storage or to a different container |
pct unmount YOUR-VM-ID |
Unmount the container’s filesystem |
pct resize YOUR-VM-ID YOUR-VM-DISK SIZE [OPTIONS] |
Resize a container mount point |
pct rescan [OPTIONS] |
Rescan all storages and update disk sizes and unused disk images |
pct enter YOUR-VM-ID |
Connect to container |
pct console YOUR-VM-ID [OPTIONS] |
Launch a console for the specified container |
pct exec YOUR-VM-ID [EXTRA-ARGS] |
Launch a command inside the specified container |
pct pull YOUR-VM-ID PATH DESTINATION [OPTIONS] |
Copy a file from the container to the local system |
pct push YOUR-VM-ID FILE DESTINATION [OPTIONS] |
Copy a local file to the container |
Web GUI
# Restart web GUI
service pveproxy restart
Resize Disk
Increase disk size
Increase disk size in the GUI or with the following command
qm resize 100 virtio0 +5G
Decrease disk size
Before decreasing disk sizes in Proxmox, you should take a backup!
- Convert qcow2 to raw:
qemu-img convert vm-100.qcow2 vm-100.raw
- Shrink the disk
qemu-img resize -f raw vm-100.raw 10G
- Convert back to qcow2
qemu-img convert -p -O qcow2 vm-100.raw vm-100.qcow2
Further information
More examples and tutorials regarding Proxmox can be found in the link list below:
