Oracle VM: Using OVM Utils

OVM Utils are a set of utilities created by Wim Coekaerts (for further informations please read Wim's blog) and released on MOS that allow users to perform using Command Line Interface almost every task that can be performed using VM Manager web interface.

Installation is really simple, just download from http://support.oracle.com

Patch 13602094: ORACLE VM 3.0 UTILS RELEASE 0.4

It's a 2.9MB zip that will be installed on the same machine where Oracle VM Manager resides.

Once downloaded extract p13602094_30_Linux-x86-64.zip to

/u01/app/oracle/ovm-manager-3/


[root@vmm ovm-manager-3]# unzip p13602094_30_Linux-x86-64.zip

[root@vmm ovm-manager-3]# unzip ovm_utils_0.5.2.zip

[root@vmm ovm-manager-3]# cd ovm_utils


OVM Utils are 6 different executables:

ovm_managercontrol: Performs actions at VM Manager level such as configuring yum repos and create cpu compatibility group. This features is intresting since using this tool allows you to group to a single server pool server with different CPU family group.
Actions allowed are: yuminfo, yumsetup, addkeystore, keystoreinfo, createcpugroup, removecpugroup, addservertocpugroup, removeserverfromcpugroup, listcpugroups, getsessiontimeout,setsessiontimeout

ovm_poolcontrol: Performs actions at Pool level. Actions allowed are: status, info, events, refresh, list, addserver, removeserver

ovm_repocontrol: Performs actions at Repository level. Actions allowed are: list, status, info, refresh, fixup, create

ovm_servercontrol: Performs actions at Server level. Actions allowed are: start, stop, restart, kill, mainton, maintoff, status, info, lock, upgrade, events, refresh, discover, list, listnfsexports, createnfsexport, deletenfsexport

ovm_vmcontrol: Performs actions at Virtual Machine level. Actions allowed are: start, stop, suspend, resume, status, restart, kill, info, lock, list, migrate, events, vcpuset, vcpuget, gettags, settags, fixcfg, delete

ovm_vmdisks: Query the Virtual Disks associated with a Virtual Machine.

ovm_vmmessage: Allows the user to send a message to a Virtual Machine in the form of a key/value pair or send a query to see if a message with a key was set inside the Virtual Machine.


These utilities have to be called passing some parameters:

./ovm_UTILITYNAME -u ADMIN_USERNAME -p ADMIN_PASSWORD -h VMMANAGER_HOSTNAME -c COMMAND_TO_SEND [-OPTIONAL_PARAMETERS]


For example here are some commands:

1)Perform a server rediscovery. My server IP Address is 10.0.0.102

./ovm_servercontrol -u admin -p password -h localhost -c discover -s 10.0.0.102 -P server_password

2)List all VMs in the Pool

./ovm_vmcontrol -u admin -p password -h localhost -c list

This command produced, in my case, the following output:

VM name : 'Win7'
     uuid   : '0004fb00000600003ace83d53d5313b0'
     server : 'orclvmsrv1'
     pool   : 'CHP'
     status : 'Stopped'

VM name : 'EnterpriseManager'
     uuid   : '0004fb00000600005d4bfe48c8fe0cf9'
     server : 'orclvmsrv1'
     pool   : 'CHP'
     status : 'Running'

VM name : 'VMM'
     uuid   : '0004fb0000060000e0f49015b41ead02'
     server : 'orclvmsrv1'
     pool   : 'CHP'
     status : 'Running'

3)Stop a running VM

./ovm_vmcontrol -u admin -p password -h localhost -c stop -v EnterpriseManager


If you need more informations about OVM Utils you can just read the manual located at

/u01/app/oracle/ovm-manager-3/ovm_utils/man/man8

That's all!!