How to check server is phyical or virtual

[praveen..]

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

[Stuart Browne · Accepted solution]

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.

[Franklin Abud]

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

uname -a

Frank

[Vipulinux]

Hi

Do an ifconfig and see whether it shows eth0 or vmnic

Cheers

[Vitaly Karasik_1]

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.

[g33k]

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...

[Ryan Goh]

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

[Vitaly Karasik_1]

Ruan, it's wrong.

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

[Ryan Goh]

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/

[Ryan Goh]

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

[Vitaly Karasik_1]

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

[Ryan Goh]

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.

[Ryan Goh]

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.