topic Re: How to check server is phyical or virtual in Operating System - Linux

How to check server is phyical or virtual

praveen.. — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 01:43:58 GMT

Hi,
I got root access of new two RHEL3 servers.

this is too much phyically far from me,

someone is saying that one server is phyical and another one is virtual server,

how to check it?

thanks

Re: How to check server is phyical or virtual

Stuart Browne — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 03:10:32 GMT

It depends on how the server has been virtualized.

Typically, you'll see different details in '/proc/cpuinfo', or the kernel will have odd tags against it (xen for instance), but otherwise, normally they'd appear pretty similar.

Have a look at the 'lspci output, as well as the 'dmesg' output. Hopefully it'll say something more detailed in there.

Re: How to check server is phyical or virtual

Franklin Abud — Sun, 09 Jul 2006 22:38:21 GMT

kernel version should tell you if the server is virtual or not:

uname -a

Frank

Re: How to check server is phyical or virtual

Vipulinux — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 10:09:20 GMT

Hi

Do an ifconfig and see whether it shows eth0 or vmnic

Cheers

Re: How to check server is phyical or virtual

Vitaly Karasik_1 — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 01:15:30 GMT

IMHO, VMWARE is the most popular technology in production environment today. And under VMWARE neither "uname -a" not "ifconfig" output don't indicate that our linux is VMWARE guest system (at least in my Centos 4 under VMWARE player).

As far as I see, the most reliable way to check if you linux runs under vmvare it's using MAC address if Ethernet interface - you can use this site if you don't remember all vendors codes http://www.coffer.com/mac_find/?string=00%3A0c%3A29.

Rgds,
Vitaly

Almost for sure you'll see "vmwaretools" package installed in your guest linux system.

Re: How to check server is phyical or virtual

g33k — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 08:24:22 GMT

not only vmware is used to do this in linux you can also use vserver, so on hosting maschine is patched kernel and vserver utilities...

Re: How to check server is phyical or virtual

Ryan Goh — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 00:18:16 GMT

if your server is virtual server, your network interface will look like eth0:1 by typing ifconfig -a

Re: How to check server is phyical or virtual

Vitaly Karasik_1 — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 02:35:02 GMT

Ruan, it's wrong.

ethX:Y is virtual IP on physical NIC, not virtual machine

Re: How to check server is phyical or virtual

Ryan Goh — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 16:48:24 GMT

Here are the link on Linux Virtual server:

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/haserver/RHHAS-1.0-Manual/ch-lvs.html

http://www.austintek.com/LVS/LVS-HOWTO/HOWTO/

Re: How to check server is phyical or virtual

Ryan Goh — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 17:01:34 GMT

Is your virtual sever is piranha. If yes, type piranha & to check, for more information on piranha, go to this link, http://www.redhat.com/support/resources/howto/piranha/index.html

Re: How to check server is phyical or virtual

Vitaly Karasik_1 — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 01:09:24 GMT

Ryan,

First at all, I didn't want to offend you.
And I'm really sorry and ask you excuse if I did it.

The word "virtual" uses a lot today, and even in linux world there are several different areas.
As far as I see, Praveen asked about difference between physical linux box and the virtual one. In the second case it may be linux under VMWARE, XEN and so on.

As for virtual IP addresses (ethX:Y) - many cluster's software (HA clusters, LVS, ...), it uses in other cases (virtual web/ftp servers) - but as far as I understand, Praveen didn't ask about virtual IPs.

Rgds,
Vitaly

Re: How to check server is phyical or virtual

Ryan Goh — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 06:50:59 GMT

Is alright, Vitaly. Your'e right, vitual can be cluster or virtual machine, I agree.

It also depend on the platform you are running the Virtual Machine on.

Re: How to check server is phyical or virtual

Ryan Goh — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 06:51:07 GMT

Is alright, Vitaly. Your'e right, virtual can be cluster or virtual machine, I agree.

It also depend on the platform you are running the Virtual Machine on.