virt-df(1)

📦
version 1.57.3 · 15 versions
, in centos-stream 10

💅 virt-df(1) — like df but for your VMs, no cap

okay so this is a page from the Virtualization Support section of the manual, and it's literally about peeking inside virtual machine filesystems. buckle up bestie 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

virt-df — display free space on virtual filesystems 🦋

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

All guests:

virt-df [--options]

Single guest:

virt-df [--options] -d domname

virt-df [--options] -a disk.img [-a disk.img ...]

Old style:

virt-df [--options] domname

virt-df [--options] disk.img [disk.img ...]

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

virt-df is a command line tool that shows you the free space on virtual machine filesystems. and like… the way it's not like other tools? it doesn't just show you the size of disk allocated to a VM — it actually looks inside the disk images to see how much space is really being used. icon behavior fr fr 👑

If you run it with no -a or -d arguments at all, virt-df checks in with libvirt, gets a list of all active and inactive guests, and does a df-type operation on each one in turn, printing out the results. slay ✨

If you do specify any -a or -d arguments, virt-df performs a df-type operation on either the single named libvirt domain, or on the disk image(s) listed on the command line (which must all belong to a single VM). And heads up: in this mode (the one with arguments), virt-df will only work for a single guest. want multiple guests? you gotta invoke virt-df multiple times. one guest per era, iykyk 💅

Use the --csv option to get a format that other programs can parse easily. other options are similar to the standard df(1) command.

🎀 EXAMPLES 🎀

Show disk usage for a single libvirt guest called F14x64, and make the output human-readable:

# virt-df -d F14x64 -h
Filesystem                       Size     Used  Available  Use%
F14x64:/dev/sda1                 484M      66M       393M   14%
F14x64:/dev/vg_f13x64/lv_root    7.4G     3.4G       4.0G   46%

Show disk usage for a disk image file called test.img:

$ virt-df -a test1.img
Filesystem                  1K-blocks     Used  Available  Use%
test1.img:/dev/sda1             99099     1551      92432    2%

If a single guest has multiple disks, use the -a option repeatedly. A plus sign (+) is displayed for each additional disk. Note: Do not do this with unrelated guest disks. 🙈

$ virt-df -a Win7x32TwoDisks-a -a Win7x32TwoDisks-b
Filesystem                   1K-blocks    Used  Available  Use%
Win7x32TwoDisks-a+:/dev/sda1    102396   24712      77684   25%
Win7x32TwoDisks-a+:/dev/sda2  12478460 7403416    5075044   60%
Win7x32TwoDisks-a+:/dev/sdb1    521212   55728     465484   11%

⭐ OPTIONS ⭐

  • --help — display brief help. short and sweet 🫶
  • -a FILE, --add FILE — add FILE, which should be a disk image from a virtual machine. if the VM has multiple block devices, you must supply all of them with separate -a options.

the format of the disk image is auto-detected. to override this and force a particular format, use the --format=.. option.

  • -a URI, --add URI — add a remote disk. see ADDING REMOTE STORAGE in guestfish(1) 💾
  • --blocksize=512, --blocksize=4096, --blocksize — this parameter sets the sector size of the disk image. it affects all explicitly added subsequent disks after this parameter. using --blocksize with no argument switches the disk sector size to the default value, which is usually 512 bytes. see also guestfs_add_drive_opts in guestfs(3).
  • -c URI, --connect URI — if using libvirt, connect to the given URI. if omitted, then we connect to the default libvirt hypervisor.

if you specify guest block devices directly (-a), then libvirt is not used at all. none. zero. ✌️

  • --csv — write out the results in CSV format (comma-separated values). this format can be imported easily into databases and spreadsheets, but pls read NOTE ABOUT CSV FORMAT below, bestie, it's important 😭
  • -d guest, --domain guest — add all the disks from the named libvirt guest. domain UUIDs can be used instead of names. 🧚
  • --format=raw|qcow2|.., --format — the default for the -a option is to auto-detect the format of the disk image. using this forces the disk format for -a options which follow on the command line. using --format with no argument switches back to auto-detection for subsequent -a options.

for example:

virt-df --format=raw -a disk.img

forces raw format (no auto-detection) for disk.img.

virt-df --format=raw -a disk.img --format -a another.img

forces raw format (no auto-detection) for disk.img and reverts to auto-detection for another.img.

if you have untrusted raw-format guest disk images, you should use this option to specify the disk format. this avoids a possible security problem with malicious guests (CVE-2010-3851). not me being serious for a sec — this one matters 🔥
  • -h, --human-readable — print sizes in human-readable format.
you are not allowed to use -h and --csv at the same time. pick a lane 💅
  • -i, --inodes — print inodes instead of blocks.
  • --one-per-guest — since libguestfs 1.22, this is the default. this option does nothing and is left here for backwards compatibility with older scripts. it's giving legacy, but respectfully 🫶
  • -P nr_threads — since libguestfs 1.22, virt-df is multithreaded and examines guests in parallel. by default the number of threads to use is chosen based on the amount of free memory available at the time that virt-df is started. you can force virt-df to use at most nr_threads by using the -P option.

note that -P 0 means to autodetect, and -P 1 means to use a single thread. ⭐

  • --uuid — print UUIDs instead of names. this is useful for following a guest even when the guest is migrated or renamed, or when two guests happen to have the same name.

note that only domains that we fetch from libvirt come with UUIDs. for disk images, we still print the disk image name even when this option is specified. no cap 💜

  • -v, --verbose — enable verbose messages for debugging. 🐛
  • -V, --version — display version number and exit.
  • -x — enable tracing of libguestfs API calls. 👀

🦋 STATVFS NUMBERS 🦋

virt-df (and df(1)) get information by issuing a statvfs(3) system call. you can get the same information directly, either from the host (using libguestfs) or inside the guest:

🌈 From the host

Run this command:

guestfish --ro -d GuestName -i statvfs /

(change / to see stats for other filesystems).

🌈 From inside the guest

Run this command:

python -c 'import os; s = os.statvfs ("/"); print s'

(change / to see stats for other filesystems).

🌸 NOTE ABOUT CSV FORMAT 🌸

comma-separated values (CSV) is a deceptive format. it seems like it should be easy to parse, but it is definitely not easy to parse. 💀

Myth: just split fields at commas. Reality: this does not work reliably. this example has two columns:

"foo,bar",baz

Myth: read the file one line at a time. Reality: this does not work reliably. this example has one row:

"foo
bar",baz

for shell scripts, use csvtool (https://github.com/Chris00/ocaml-csv — also packaged in major Linux distributions).

for other languages, use a CSV processing library (eg. Text::CSV for Perl or Python’s built-in csv library).

most spreadsheets and databases can import CSV directly. so like… it's fine, just don't hand-roll the parser 😭

💅 EXIT STATUS 💅

this program returns 0 if successful, or non-zero if there was an error.

🎀 SEE ALSO 🎀

df(1), guestfs(3), guestfish(1), virt-drivers(1), virt-filesystems(1), http://libguestfs.org/.

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Richard W.M. Jones — http://people.redhat.com/~rjones/

Copyright (C) 2009-2025 Red Hat Inc.

🧚 LICENSE 🧚

this program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

this program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. see the GNU General Public License for more details.

you should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.

🐛 BUGS 🐛

to get a list of bugs against libguestfs, use this link: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/buglist.cgi?component=libguestfs&product=Virtualization+Tools

to report a new bug against libguestfs, use this link: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/enter_bug.cgi?component=libguestfs&product=Virtualization+Tools

when reporting a bug, please supply:

  • the version of libguestfs.
  • where you got libguestfs (eg. which Linux distro, compiled from source, etc)
  • describe the bug accurately and give a way to reproduce it.
  • run libguestfs-test-tool(1) and paste the complete, unedited output into the bug report. yes, complete and unedited — don't be shy with it 🙈

and that's the whole page!! this one's from guestfs-tools-1.57.3, dated 2026-09-16 — go forth and check your disk space, bestie, you've got this 🫶✨

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