QEMU-GA-REF(7)

✨ NAME ✨

qemu-ga-ref — QEMU Guest Agent Protocol Reference 🎀

So this manual (that's QEMU-GA-REF(7) bestie, hi, welcome) literally describes all the commands that the QEMU Guest Agent Protocol supports. That's the whole vibe.

If you're trying to find one specific thing and you're scrolling like 😭 — go check the QGA Index <>. It's giving map, it's giving "let me help you find your item."

The notation used in examples is this, keep it in your notes:

Example:

    -> ... text sent by client (commands) ...
    <- ... text sent by server (command responses and events) ...

The example text is formatted for readability. However — and this is the part people forget — in real protocol usage, it's commonly emitted as a single line. One line. That's it. No pretty wrapping, no vibes, just a long boi.

Also please refer to the QEMU Machine Protocol Specification <> for the general format of commands, responses, and events. That's where the general shape lives, this page is the specific tea. 🫖

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🦋 Commands & Objects, In Order, No Skips 🦋

Command guest-sync-delimited (Since: 1.1) 💅

Echo back a unique integer value, and prepend to the response a leading sentinel byte (0xFF) that the client can check/scan for. 🎯

This one is used by clients talking to the guest agent over the wire to ensure the stream is in sync and doesn't contain stale data from a previous client. It must be issued upon initial connection, and after any client-side timeouts (including timeouts on receiving a response to this command). Like, mandatory, no skips.

After issuing this request, all guest agent responses should be ignored until the response containing the unique integer value the client passed in is returned. Receival of the 0xFF sentinel byte must be handled as an indication that the client's lexer/tokenizer/parser state should be flushed/reset, in preparation for reliably receiving the subsequent response. As an optimization, clients may opt to ignore all data until a sentinel value is receiving* to avoid unnecessary processing of stale data.

Similarly, clients should also precede this request with a 0xFF byte to make sure the guest agent flushes any partially read JSON data from a previous client connection. Symmetry, slay. 💫

Arguments

• id (int) — randomly generated 64-bit integer

Return int — The unique integer id passed in by the client

Command guest-sync (Since: 0.15.0) 🌸

Echo back a unique integer value.

This is used by clients talking to the guest agent over the wire to ensure the stream is in sync and doesn't contain stale data from a previous client. All guest agent responses should be ignored until the provided unique integer value is returned, and it's up to the client to handle stale whole or partially-delivered JSON text in such a way that this response can be obtained.

In cases where a partial stale response was previously received by the client, this cannot always be done reliably. One particular scenario being if qemu-ga responses are fed character-by-character into a JSON parser. In these situations, using guest-sync-delimited may be optimal. 👑

For clients that fetch responses line by line and convert them to JSON objects, guest-sync should be sufficient — but note that in cases where the channel is dirty, some attempts at parsing the response may result in a parser error. 💀

Such clients should also precede this command with a 0xFF byte to make sure the guest agent flushes any partially read JSON data from a previous session.

Arguments

• id (int) — randomly generated 64-bit integer

Return int — The unique integer id passed in by the client

Command guest-ping (Since: 0.15.0) 🫶

Ping the guest agent. A non-error return implies success. That's it. That's the whole command. Lowkey iconic for how little it asks of you.

Command guest-get-time (Since: 1.5) ⭐

Get the information about guest's System Time relative to the Epoch of 1970-01-01 in UTC.

Return int — Time in nanoseconds.

Command guest-set-time (Since: 1.5) 🕰️

Set guest time.

Okay so here's the situation. When a guest is paused or migrated to a file then loaded from that file, the guest OS has no idea that there was a big gap in the time. Depending on how long the gap was, NTP might not be able to resynchronize the guest. 😬

This command tries to set guest's System Time to the given value, then sets the Hardware Clock (RTC) to the current System Time. This will make it easier for a guest to resynchronize without waiting for NTP. If no time is specified, then the time to set is read from RTC. However, this may not be supported on all platforms (i.e. Windows). If that's the case, users are advised to always pass a value. No cap, just pass it. 🙏

Arguments

• time (int, optional) — time of nanoseconds, relative to the Epoch of 1970-01-01 in UTC.

Object GuestAgentCommandInfo (Since: 1.1.0) 🧚

Information about guest agent commands.

Members

• name (string) — name of the command
• enabled (boolean) — whether command is currently enabled by guest admin
• success-response (boolean) — whether command returns a response on success (since 1.7)

Object GuestAgentInfo (Since: 0.15.0) 💖

Information about guest agent.

Members

• version (string) — guest agent version
• supported_commands ([GuestAgentCommandInfo]) — Information about guest agent commands

Command guest-info (Since: 0.15.0) 🎀

Get some information about the guest agent.

Return GuestAgentInfo

Command guest-shutdown (Since: 0.15.0) 🔥

Initiate guest-activated shutdown. Note: this is an asynchronous shutdown request, with no guarantee of successful shutdown. It's giving "sent the text, no read receipt." 😭

Arguments

• mode (string, optional) — "halt", "powerdown" (default), or "reboot"

This command does NOT return a response on success. Success condition is indicated by the VM exiting with a zero exit status or, when running with --no-shutdown, by issuing the query-status <#command-QMP-run-state.query-status> QMP command to confirm the VM status is "shutdown". Periodt. 💅

Command guest-file-open (Since: 0.15.0) 🌈

Open a file in the guest and retrieve a file handle for it.

Arguments

• path (string) — Full path to the file in the guest to open.
• mode (string, optional) — open mode, as per fopen(), "r" is the default.

Return int — Guest file handle

Command guest-file-close (Since: 0.15.0) 🍓

Close an open file in the guest.

Arguments

• handle (int) — filehandle returned by guest-file-open

Object GuestFileRead (Since: 0.15.0) 📖

Result of guest agent file-read operation.

Members

• count (int) — number of bytes read (note: count is before base64-encoding is applied)
• buf-b64 (string) — base64-encoded bytes read
• eof (boolean) — whether EOF was encountered during read operation.

Command guest-file-read (Since: 0.15.0) 🦋

Read from an open file in the guest. Data will be base64-encoded. As this command is just for limited, ad-hoc debugging, such as log file access, the number of bytes to read is limited to 48 MB. Sorry bestie, we're not reading your whole disk with this one.

Arguments

• handle (int) — filehandle returned by guest-file-open
• count (int, optional) — maximum number of bytes to read (default is 4KB, maximum is 48MB)

Return GuestFileRead

Object GuestFileWrite (Since: 0.15.0) ✍️

Result of guest agent file-write operation.

Members

• count (int) — number of bytes written (note: count is actual bytes written, after base64-decoding of provided buffer)
• eof (boolean) — whether EOF was encountered during write operation.

Command guest-file-write (Since: 0.15.0) 💜

Write to an open file in the guest.

Arguments

• handle (int) — filehandle returned by guest-file-open
• buf-b64 (string) — base64-encoded string representing data to be written
• count (int, optional) — bytes to write (actual bytes, after base64-decode), default is all content in buf-b64 buffer after base64 decoding

Return GuestFileWrite

Object GuestFileSeek (Since: 0.15.0) 🧭

Result of guest agent file-seek operation.

Members

• position (int) — current file position
• eof (boolean) — whether EOF was encountered during file seek

Enum QGASeek (Since: 2.6) 🎯

Symbolic names for use in guest-file-seek.

Values

• set — Set to the specified offset (same effect as 'whence':0)
• cur — Add offset to the current location (same effect as 'whence':1)
• end — Add offset to the end of the file (same effect as 'whence':2)

Alternate GuestFileWhence (Since: 2.6) 🌀

Controls the meaning of offset to guest-file-seek. Pick your fighter, both are valid.

Alternatives

• value (int) — Integral value (0 for set, 1 for cur, 2 for end), available for historical reasons, and might differ from the host's or guest's SEEK_* values (since: 0.15)
• name (QGASeek) — Symbolic name, and preferred interface

Command guest-file-seek (Since: 0.15.0) 🔍

Seek to a position in the file, as with fseek(), and return the current file position afterward. Also encapsulates ftell()'s functionality, with offset=0 and whence=1. Two icons, one command, we love efficiency. 💅

Arguments

• handle (int) — filehandle returned by guest-file-open
• offset (int) — bytes to skip over in the file stream
• whence (GuestFileWhence) — Symbolic or numeric code for interpreting offset

Return GuestFileSeek

Command guest-file-flush (Since: 0.15.0) 🌊

Write file changes buffered in userspace to disk/kernel buffers. Go on, make it persistent, you deserve it.

Arguments

• handle (int) — filehandle returned by guest-file-open

Enum GuestFsfreezeStatus (Since: 0.15.0) 🧊

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32 or CONFIG_FSFREEZE

An enumeration of filesystem freeze states.

Values

• thawed — filesystems thawed/unfrozen
• frozen — all non-network guest filesystems frozen

🌡️ Command guest-fsfreeze-status (Since: 0.15.0)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32 or CONFIG_FSFREEZE

okay so this one just tells you the guest's fsfreeze state, no biggie 💅

⚠️ Note: the tea here is that this can legitimately fail to properly report the current state — because some other guest processes went and issued an fs freeze/thaw behind your back. rude, honestly.

Return GuestFsfreezeStatus

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🧊 Command guest-fsfreeze-freeze (Since: 0.15.0)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32 or CONFIG_FSFREEZE

Sync and freeze all the freezable, local guest filesystems. bestie if this command succeeded, you're fully allowed to come back later and call guest-fsfreeze-thaw to unfreeze. thaw it out, slay ✨

On error, all filesystems get thawed — like, automatically, no cap. And if no filesystems ended up frozen as a result of this call, then guest-fsfreeze-status stays "thawed" and you genuinely do not need to call guest-fsfreeze-thaw. nothing to thaw, nothing to do 🫶

Return int — number of file systems currently frozen.

💀 Note: on Windows, this one is implemented with the help of a Volume Shadow-copy Service DLL helper. The frozen state is limited to up to 10 seconds by VSS. ten seconds!! set a timer or perish.

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📋 Command guest-fsfreeze-freeze-list (Since: 2.2)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32 or CONFIG_FSFREEZE

Same vibe as freezing everything, except you get to choose. Sync and freeze the specified guest filesystems. See also guest-fsfreeze-freeze.

On error, all filesystems will be thawed.

Arguments

• mountpoints ([string], optional) — an array of mountpoints of filesystems to freeze. If you omit it, literally every mounted filesystem gets frozen. Invalid mount points are just ignored (the audacity, but ok 🙈).

Return int — number of file systems currently frozen.

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🔥 Command guest-fsfreeze-thaw (Since: 0.15.0)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32 or CONFIG_FSFREEZE

Unfreeze all frozen guest filesystems. that's it, that's the command 💖

Return int — number of file systems thawed by this call.

⚠️ Note: if the return value does not match the previous call to guest-fsfreeze-freeze, that likely means some freezable filesystems got unfrozen before this call — and that the filesystem state may have changed before you issued this command. so like, pay attention to the numbers, iykyk.

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🌸 Object GuestFilesystemTrimResult (Since: 2.4)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32 or CONFIG_FSTRIM

Members

• path (string) — path that was trimmed
• error (string, optional) — an error message when trim failed
• trimmed (int, optional) — bytes trimmed for this path
• minimum (int, optional) — reported effective minimum for this path

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🦋 Object GuestFilesystemTrimResponse (Since: 2.4)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32 or CONFIG_FSTRIM

Members

• paths ([GuestFilesystemTrimResult]) — list of GuestFilesystemTrimResult per path that was trimmed

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🧹 Command guest-fstrim (Since: 1.2)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32 or CONFIG_FSTRIM

Discard (or "trim") blocks which are not in use by the filesystem. spring cleaning but make it block-level 🎀

Arguments

• minimum (int, optional) — minimum contiguous free range to discard, in bytes. Free ranges smaller than this may be ignored (it's a hint, and the guest may simply not respect it, which is so on brand 😭). By increasing this value, the fstrim operation will complete more quickly for filesystems with badly fragmented free space, although not all blocks will be discarded. The default value is zero, meaning "discard every free block".

Return GuestFilesystemTrimResponse — status of all trimmed paths. (since 2.4)

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💤 Command guest-suspend-disk (Since: 1.1)

Availability: CONFIG_LINUX or CONFIG_WIN32

Suspend guest to disk. nap time, but permanent-ish 🌙

This command attempts to suspend the guest using three strategies, in this exact order:

1. systemd hibernate
2. pm-utils (via pm-hibernate)
3. manual write into sysfs

This command does NOT return a response on success. like, silence = success bestie. There's a high chance the command succeeded if the VM exits with a zero exit status or, when running with --no-shutdown, by issuing the query-status QMP command to confirm the VM status is "shutdown". However — and this is the important part — the VM could also exit (or set its status to "shutdown") due to other reasons. so don't get cocky 💀

Errors

• If suspend to disk is not supported → Unsupported

🔔 Note: it's strongly recommended to issue the guest-sync command before sending commands when the guest resumes. do it. don't skip it. fr fr.

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🛌 Command guest-suspend-ram (Since: 1.1)

Availability: CONFIG_LINUX or CONFIG_WIN32

Suspend guest to ram 🧚

This command attempts to suspend the guest using three strategies, in this order:

1. systemd hibernate
2. pm-utils (via pm-hibernate)
3. manual write into sysfs

🚨 IMPORTANT: guest-suspend-ram requires working wakeup support in QEMU. You should check that QMP command query-current-machine returns wakeup-suspend-support: true before issuing this command. Failure in doing so can result in a suspended guest that QEMU will not be able to awaken — forcing the user to power cycle the guest to bring it back. like, full on yanking the plug 💀 don't do that to yourself.

This command does NOT return a response on success. There are two options to check for success:

1. Wait for the SUSPEND QMP event from QEMU
2. Issue the query-status QMP command to confirm the VM status is "suspended"

Errors

• If suspend to ram is not supported → Unsupported

🔔 Note: it's strongly recommended to issue the guest-sync command before sending commands when the guest resumes.

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🧬 Command guest-suspend-hybrid (Since: 1.1)

Availability: CONFIG_LINUX

Save guest state to disk and suspend to ram. the best of both worlds, main character energy 👑

This command attempts to suspend the guest by executing, in this order:

1. systemd hybrid-sleep
2. pm-utils (via pm-suspend-hybrid)

🚨 IMPORTANT: guest-suspend-hybrid requires working wakeup support in QEMU. You should check that QMP command query-current-machine returns wakeup-suspend-support: true before issuing this command. Failure in doing so can result in a suspended guest that QEMU will not be able to awaken, forcing the user to power cycle the guest to bring it back. same warning, same stakes, pls heed it 🙏

This command does NOT return a response on success. There are two options to check for success:

1. Wait for the SUSPEND QMP event from QEMU
2. Issue the query-status QMP command to confirm the VM status is "suspended"

Errors

• If hybrid suspend is not supported → Unsupported

🔔 Note: it's strongly recommended to issue the guest-sync command before sending commands when the guest resumes.

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🌈 Enum GuestIpAddressType (Since: 1.1)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32 or HAVE_GETIFADDRS

An enumeration of supported IP address types 🫶

Values

• ipv4 — IP version 4
• ipv6 — IP version 6

---

⭐ Object GuestIpAddress (Since: 1.1)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32 or HAVE_GETIFADDRS

Members

• ip-address (string) — IP address
• ip-address-type (GuestIpAddressType) — type of ip-address (e.g. ipv4, ipv6)
• prefix (int) — network prefix length of ip-address

---

📊 Object GuestNetworkInterfaceStat (Since: 2.11)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32 or HAVE_GETIFADDRS

Members

• rx-bytes (int) — total bytes received
• rx-packets (int) — total packets received
• rx-errs (int) — bad packets received
• rx-dropped (int) — receiver dropped packets
• tx-bytes (int) — total bytes transmitted
• tx-packets (int) — total packets transmitted
• tx-errs (int) — packet transmit problems
• tx-dropped (int) — dropped packets transmitted

---

🌐 Object GuestNetworkInterface (Since: 1.1)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32 or HAVE_GETIFADDRS

Members

• name (string) — the name of interface for which info are being delivered
• hardware-address (string, optional) — hardware address of name
• ip-addresses ([GuestIpAddress], optional) — list of addresses assigned to name
• statistics (GuestNetworkInterfaceStat, optional) — various statistic counters related to name (since 2.11)

---

💻 Command guest-network-get-interfaces (Since: 1.1)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32 or HAVE_GETIFADDRS

Get list of guest IP addresses, MAC addresses and netmasks. one call, all the network lore 🦋

Return [GuestNetworkInterface]

---

🧠 Object GuestLogicalProcessor (Since: 1.5)

Availability: CONFIG_LINUX or CONFIG_WIN32

Members

• logical-id (int) — arbitrary guest-specific unique identifier of the VCPU.
• online (boolean) — whether the VCPU is enabled.
• can-offline (boolean, optional) — whether offlining the VCPU is possible. This member is always filled in by the guest agent when the structure is returned, and always ignored on input (hence it can be omitted then). so read it, don't send it 💅

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👀 Command guest-get-vcpus (Since: 1.5)

Availability: CONFIG_LINUX or CONFIG_WIN32

Retrieve the list of the guest's logical processors.

This is a read-only operation. literally just looking, no touching ✨

Return [GuestLogicalProcessor] — the list of all VCPUs the guest knows about. Each VCPU is put on the list exactly once, but their order is unspecified. so maybe don't assume the order, bestie.

---

🎛️ Command guest-set-vcpus (Since: 1.5)

Availability: CONFIG_LINUX

Attempt to reconfigure (currently: enable/disable) logical processors inside the guest. you're basically a VCPU manager now 👑

Arguments

and here's what you actually pass it 👇

• vcpus ([GuestLogicalProcessor]) — the logical processors you're reconfiguring. This list gets processed node by node, in order, fr fr. In each node, logical-id is what we use to look up the guest VCPU, and online is the state you're asking for. The set of distinct logical-ids only has to be a subset of the identifiers the guest actually supports — that's the only rule. There's no restriction on how long the list is, and no restriction on repeating the same logical-id (with a possibly different online field, iykyk). Best practice? Have your input list describe a modified subset of what guest-get-vcpus returned to you. Chef's kiss.

Return int —

The length of the initial sublist that got successfully processed. The guest agent maximizes this value. 💅 Possible cases:

• 0: if the vcpus list was empty on input. Guest state has not been changed. Otherwise,
• < length(vcpus): more than zero initial nodes have been processed, but not the entire vcpus list. Guest state has changed accordingly. To retrieve the error (assuming it persists), repeat the call with the successfully processed initial sublist removed. Otherwise,
• length(vcpus): call successful. slay.

Errors

• If the reconfiguration of the first node in vcpus failed. Guest state has not been changed.

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🎀 Enum GuestDiskBusType (Since: 2.2; 'Unknown' and all entries below since 2.4)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32 or CONFIG_LINUX

An enumeration of bus type of disks. Literally just a big list of disk buses.

Values

• ide — IDE disks
• fdc — floppy disks
• scsi — SCSI disks
• virtio — virtio disks
• xen — Xen disks
• usb — USB disks
• uml — UML disks
• sata — SATA disks
• sd — SD cards
• unknown — Unknown bus type
• ieee1394 — Win IEEE 1394 bus type
• ssa — Win SSA bus type
• fibre — Win fiber channel bus type
• raid — Win RAID bus type
• iscsi — Win iScsi bus type
• sas — Win serial-attaches SCSI bus type
• mmc — Win multimedia card (MMC) bus type
• virtual — Win virtual bus type
• file-backed-virtual — Win file-backed bus type
• nvme — NVMe disks (since 7.1)

---

🦋 Object GuestPCIAddress (Since: 2.2)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32 or CONFIG_LINUX

Members

• domain (int) — domain id
• bus (int) — bus id
• slot (int) — slot id
• function (int) — function id

---

🌸 Object GuestCCWAddress (Since: 6.0)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32 or CONFIG_LINUX

Members

• cssid (int) — channel subsystem image id
• ssid (int) — subchannel set id
• subchno (int) — subchannel number
• devno (int) — device number

---

💜 Object GuestDiskAddress (Since: 2.2)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32 or CONFIG_LINUX

Members

• pci-controller (GuestPCIAddress) — controller's PCI address (fields are set to -1 if invalid)
• bus-type (GuestDiskBusType) — bus type
• bus (int) — bus id
• target (int) — target id
• unit (int) — unit id
• serial (string, optional) — serial number (since: 3.1)
• dev (string, optional) — device node (POSIX) or device UNC (Windows) (since: 3.1)
• ccw-address (GuestCCWAddress, optional) — CCW address on s390x (since: 6.0)

---

🌈 Object GuestNVMeSmart (Since: 7.1)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32 or CONFIG_LIBUDEV

NVMe smart information, based on NVMe specification, section <SMART / Health Information (Log Identifier 02h)>

Members

• critical-warning (int) — Not documented
• temperature (int) — Not documented
• available-spare (int) — Not documented
• available-spare-threshold (int) — Not documented
• percentage-used (int) — Not documented
• data-units-read-lo (int) — Not documented
• data-units-read-hi (int) — Not documented
• data-units-written-lo (int) — Not documented
• data-units-written-hi (int) — Not documented
• host-read-commands-lo (int) — Not documented
• host-read-commands-hi (int) — Not documented
• host-write-commands-lo (int) — Not documented
• host-write-commands-hi (int) — Not documented
• controller-busy-time-lo (int) — Not documented
• controller-busy-time-hi (int) — Not documented
• power-cycles-lo (int) — Not documented
• power-cycles-hi (int) — Not documented
• power-on-hours-lo (int) — Not documented
• power-on-hours-hi (int) — Not documented
• unsafe-shutdowns-lo (int) — Not documented
• unsafe-shutdowns-hi (int) — Not documented
• media-errors-lo (int) — Not documented
• media-errors-hi (int) — Not documented
• number-of-error-log-entries-lo (int) — Not documented
• number-of-error-log-entries-hi (int) — Not documented

okay yes, every single one says "Not documented" and every single one is staying in this list. no we are not skipping them. 💀

---

⭐ Object GuestDiskSmart (Since: 7.1)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32 or CONFIG_LIBUDEV

Disk type related smart information.

Members

• type (GuestDiskBusType) — disk bus type
• When type is nvme: The members of GuestNVMeSmart.

---

🍓 Object GuestDiskInfo (Since: 5.2)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32 or CONFIG_LIBUDEV

Members

• name (string) — device node (Linux) or device UNC (Windows)
• partition (boolean) — whether this is a partition or disk
• dependencies ([string], optional) — list of device dependencies; e.g. for LVs of the LVM this will hold the list of PVs, for LUKS encrypted volume this will contain the disk where the volume is placed. (Linux)
• address (GuestDiskAddress, optional) — disk address information (only for non-virtual devices)
• alias (string, optional) — optional alias assigned to the disk, on Linux this is a name assigned by device mapper
• smart (GuestDiskSmart, optional) — disk smart information (Since 7.1)

---

🫶 Command guest-get-disks (Since: 5.2)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32 or CONFIG_LIBUDEV

Return [GuestDiskInfo] — The list of disks in the guest. For Windows these are only the physical disks. On Linux these are all root block devices of non-zero size including e.g. removable devices, loop devices, NBD, etc. the whole crew shows up 💅

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🧚 Object GuestFilesystemInfo (Since: 2.2)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32 or CONFIG_LINUX

Members

• name (string) — disk name
• mountpoint (string) — mount point path
• type (string) — file system type string
• used-bytes (int, optional) — file system used bytes (since 3.0)
• total-bytes (int, optional) — filesystem capacity in bytes for unprivileged users (since 3.0)
• total-bytes-privileged (int, optional) — filesystem capacity in bytes for privileged users (since 9.1)
• disk ([GuestDiskAddress]) — an array of disk hardware information that the volume lies on, which may be empty if the disk type is not supported

---

🔥 Command guest-get-fsinfo (Since: 2.2)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32 or CONFIG_LINUX

Return [GuestFilesystemInfo] — The list of filesystems information mounted in the guest. The returned mountpoints may be specified to guest-fsfreeze-freeze-list. Network filesystems (such as CIFS and NFS) are not listed. sorry bestie, no network vibes here 🙈

---

👑 Command guest-set-user-password (Since: 2.3)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32 or CONFIG_LINUX or CONFIG_FREEBSD

Arguments

• username (string) — the user account whose password to change
• password (string) — the new password entry string, base64 encoded
• crypted (boolean) — true if password is already crypt()d, false if raw

If the crypted flag is true, it is the caller's responsibility to ensure the correct crypt() encryption scheme is used. This command does not attempt to interpret or report on the encryption scheme. Refer to the documentation of the guest operating system in question to determine what is supported.

ngl, this part is important: not all guest operating systems will support use of the crypted flag, as they may require the clear-text password.

The password parameter must always be base64 encoded before transmission, even if already crypt()d, to ensure it is 8-bit safe when passed as JSON. no cap, always base64. 🔐

---

🎀 Object GuestMemoryBlock (Since: 2.3)

Availability: CONFIG_LINUX

Members

• phys-index (int) — Arbitrary guest-specific unique identifier of the MEMORY BLOCK.
• online (boolean) — Whether the MEMORY BLOCK is enabled in guest.
• can-offline (boolean, optional) — Whether offlining the MEMORY BLOCK is possible. This member is always filled in by the guest agent when the structure is returned, and always ignored on input (hence it can be omitted then).

---

🌸 Command guest-get-memory-blocks (Since: 2.3)

Availability: CONFIG_LINUX

Retrieve the list of the guest's memory blocks.

This is a read-only operation.

Return [GuestMemoryBlock] — The list of all memory blocks the guest knows about. Each memory block is put on the list exactly once, but their order is unspecified. don't come for the ordering, it's not that kind of list 💅

---

🦋 Enum GuestMemoryBlockResponseType (Since: 2.3)

Availability: CONFIG_LINUX

An enumeration of memory block operation result.

Values

• success — the operation of online/offline memory block is successful.
• not-found — can't find the corresponding memoryXXX directory in sysfs.
• operation-not-supported — some old kernels just don't do the online/offline memory block thing at all, so like… nope 🫠
• operation-failed — the online/offline memory block operation straight up fails, because errors happened. that's it, that's the reason 💀

---

🧱 Object GuestMemoryBlockResponse (Since: 2.3)

Availability: CONFIG_LINUX

Members

• phys-index (int) — same as the 'phys-index' member of GuestMemoryBlock. matching besties 💫
• response (GuestMemoryBlockResponseType) — the result of the memory block operation.
• error-code (int, optional) — the error number. when the memory block operation fails, we slide the value of 'errno' in here and it tells you what went wrong. when the operation succeeds, it gets omitted. slay ✨

---

🧱 Command guest-set-memory-blocks (Since: 2.3)

Availability: CONFIG_LINUX

Attempts to reconfigure (currently: enable/disable) the state of memory blocks inside the guest. glow-up for memory blocks 💅

Arguments

• mem-blks ([GuestMemoryBlock]) — the memory blocks to be reconfigured. this list is processed node by node, in order, no skipping. in each node phys-index is used to look up the guest MEMORY BLOCK, and for that block online specifies the requested state. the set of distinct phys-index's only has to be a subset of the guest-supported identifiers — no need for the whole set, bestie. there's no restriction on list length, and no restriction on repeating the same phys-index (with possibly different online field). preferably the input list should describe a modified subset of guest-get-memory-blocks' return value. iykyk 🎀

Return [GuestMemoryBlockResponse] —

The operation results: a list of GuestMemoryBlockResponse, corresponding to the input list. one-to-one, matching energy 🫶

Note: it will return an empty list if the mem-blks list was empty on input, or if there is an error — and in that case, guest state will not be changed. no cap, nothing happens. 🙈

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🧱 Object GuestMemoryBlockInfo (Since: 2.3)

Availability: CONFIG_LINUX

Members

• size (int) — the size (in bytes) of the guest memory blocks, which are the minimal units of memory block online/offline operations (also called Logical Memory Hotplug). the smallest unit, the little guy, the main character of hotplug 🔥

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🧱 Command guest-get-memory-block-info (Since: 2.3)

Availability: CONFIG_LINUX

Get information relating to guest memory blocks. just the facts, ma'am 💖

Return GuestMemoryBlockInfo

---

🧾 Object GuestExecStatus (Since: 2.5)

Members

• exited (boolean) — true if the process has already terminated. it's gone, bestie 😭
• exitcode (int, optional) — process exit code, if it was normally terminated.
• signal (int, optional) — signal number (linux) or unhandled exception code (windows), if the process was abnormally terminated.
• out-data (string, optional) — base64-encoded stdout of the process. this field will only be populated after the process exits. patience, queen 👑
• err-data (string, optional) — base64-encoded stderr of the process. Note: out-data and err-data are present only if 'capture-output' was specified for guest-exec. this field will only be populated after the process exits.
• out-truncated (boolean, optional) — true if stdout was not fully captured due to size limitation. we ran out of room, it's giving budget cuts 💀
• err-truncated (boolean, optional) — true if stderr was not fully captured due to size limitation.

---

🧾 Command guest-exec-status (Since: 2.5)

Check the status of the process associated with the PID you retrieved via guest-exec. it reaps the process and associated metadata if it has exited. very responsible of it 🌸

Arguments

• pid (int) — pid returned from guest-exec

Return GuestExecStatus

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🧾 Object GuestExec (Since: 2.5)

Members

• pid (int) — pid of the child process in the guest OS. the baby's id 🍼

---

🔀 Enum GuestExecCaptureOutputMode (Since: 8.0)

An enumeration of guest-exec capture modes. pick your vibe ✨

Values

• none — do not capture any output. silence. iconic. 🤐
• stdout — only capture stdout
• stderr — only capture stderr
• separated — capture both stdout and stderr, but separated into GuestExecStatus out-data and err-data, respectively. keep 'em apart, they're not friends 🫶
• merged — capture both stdout and stderr, but merge them together into out-data. Not effective on windows guests. (windows said no thanks 🙅)

---

🔀 Alternate GuestExecCaptureOutput (Since: 8.0)

Controls what guest-exec output gets captures. (yes, "captures." we said what we said 💅)

Alternatives

• flag (boolean) — captures both stdout and stderr if true. Equivalent to GuestExecCaptureOutputMode::all. (since 2.5)
• mode (GuestExecCaptureOutputMode) — capture mode; preferred interface. the upgrade, the rebrand, the preferred one 👑

---

🧾 Command guest-exec (Since: 2.5)

Execute a command in the guest. we're running things now 🏃‍♀️

Arguments

• path (string) — path or executable name to execute
• arg ([string], optional) — argument list to pass to the executable
• env ([string], optional) — environment variables to pass to the executable
• input-data (string, optional) — data to be passed to the process stdin (base64 encoded)
• capture-output (GuestExecCaptureOutput, optional) — bool flag to enable capture of stdout/stderr of the running process. Defaults to false. no extra receipts unless you ask 🎀

Return GuestExec — PID

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🏠 Object GuestHostName (Since: 2.10)

Members

• host-name (string) — Fully qualified domain name of the guest OS. its whole government name ✨

---

🏠 Command guest-get-host-name (Since: 2.10)

Return a name for the machine. what's it called, bestie? 🌈

The returned name is not necessarily a fully-qualified domain name, or even present in DNS or some other name service at all. It need not even be unique on your local network or site — but usually it is. so like… it's a name, not a promise 😌

Return GuestHostName — the host name of the machine

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👤 Object GuestUser (Since: 2.10)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32 or HAVE_UTMPX

Members

• user (string) — Username
• domain (string, optional) — Logon domain (windows only)
• login-time (number) — time of login of this user on the computer. if multiple instances of the user are logged in, the earliest login time is reported. the value is in fractional seconds since epoch time. earliest one wins, no favorites 🕐

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👤 Command guest-get-users (Since: 2.10)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32 or HAVE_UTMPX

Retrieves a list of currently active users on the VM. who's online rn 👀

Return [GuestUser] — A unique list of users. no duplicates, we don't do that here 💅

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🕰️ Object GuestTimezone (Since: 2.10)

Members

• zone (string, optional) — Timezone name. These values may differ depending on guest/OS and should only be used for informational purposes. like, don't build anything on top of this, it's decorative 🎀
• offset (int) — offset to UTC in seconds, negative numbers for time zones west of GMT, positive numbers for east. west = negative, east = positive, math is math 🧮

---

🕰️ Command guest-get-timezone (Since: 2.10)

Retrieves the timezone information from the guest. what time is it in there ⏰

Return GuestTimezone

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💻 Object GuestOSInfo (Since: 2.10)

Members

• kernel-release (string, optional) —
  • POSIX: release field returned by uname(2)
  • Windows: build number of the OS
• kernel-version (string, optional) —
  • POSIX: version field returned by uname(2)
  • Windows: version number of the OS
• machine (string, optional) —
  • POSIX: machine field returned by uname(2)
  • Windows: one of x86, x86_64, arm, ia64
• id (string, optional) —
  • POSIX: as defined by os-release(5)
  • Windows: contains string "mswindows"
• name (string, optional) —
  • POSIX: as defined by os-release(5)
  • Windows: contains string "Microsoft Windows"
• pretty-name (string, optional) —
  • POSIX: as defined by os-release(5)
  • Windows: product name, e.g. "Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise"
• version (string, optional) —
  • POSIX: as defined by os-release(5)
  • Windows: long version string, e.g. "Microsoft Windows Server 2008"
• version-id (string, optional) —
  • POSIX: as defined by os-release(5)
  • Windows: short version identifier, e.g. "7" or "2012r2"
• variant (string, optional) —
  • POSIX: as defined by os-release(5)
  • Windows: contains string "server" or "client"
• variant-id (string, optional) —
  • POSIX: as defined by os-release(5)
  • Windows: contains string "server" or "client"

🫶 Note: on POSIX systems the fields id, name, pretty-name, version, version-id, variant and variant-id follow the definition specified in os-release(5). Like, go read that manual page for the exact description of each field, bestie — their values are literally taken from the os-release file. If that file isn't present on the system, or the values aren't in the file, then the fields just don't get included. On Windows, the values are filled from information gathered from the system. ✨

---

Command guest-get-osinfo (Since: 2.10)

Retrieve guest operating system information 👑

Return GuestOSInfo

Enum GuestDeviceType

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32

Values

• pci — PCI device 💅

Object GuestDeviceIdPCI (Since: 5.2)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32

Members

• vendor-id (int) — vendor ID
• device-id (int) — device ID

Object GuestDeviceId (Since: 5.2)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32

Id of the device 🎀

Members

• type (GuestDeviceType) — device type
• When type is pci: the members of GuestDeviceIdPCI. 🌸

Object GuestDeviceInfo (Since: 5.2)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32

Members

• driver-name (string) — name of the associated driver
• driver-date (int, optional) — driver release date, in nanoseconds since the epoch
• driver-version (string, optional) — driver version
• id (GuestDeviceId, optional) — device ID

Command guest-get-devices (Since: 5.2)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32

Retrieve information about device drivers in Windows guest 🖥️

Return [GuestDeviceInfo]

Object GuestAuthorizedKeys (Since: 5.2)

Members

• keys ([string]) — public keys (in OpenSSH/sshd(8) authorized_keys format) 🔑

Command guest-ssh-get-authorized-keys (Since: 5.2)

Return the public keys from user .ssh/authorized_keys on Unix systems (not implemented for other systems). 🐧

Arguments

• username (string) — the user account to add the authorized keys

Return GuestAuthorizedKeys

Command guest-ssh-add-authorized-keys (Since: 5.2)

Append public keys to user .ssh/authorized_keys on Unix systems (not implemented for other systems). ✨

Arguments

• username (string) — the user account to add the authorized keys
• keys ([string]) — the public keys to add (in OpenSSH/sshd(8) authorized_keys format)
• reset (boolean, optional) — ignore the existing content, set it with the given keys only

Command guest-ssh-remove-authorized-keys (Since: 5.2)

Remove public keys from the user .ssh/authorized_keys on Unix systems (not implemented for other systems). And no cap: it's not an error if the key is already missing. 💀

Arguments

• username (string) — the user account to remove the authorized keys
• keys ([string]) — the public keys to remove (in OpenSSH/sshd(8) authorized_keys format)

Object GuestDiskStats (Since: 7.1)

Availability: CONFIG_LINUX

Members

• read-sectors (int, optional) — sectors read
• read-ios (int, optional) — reads completed successfully
• read-merges (int, optional) — read requests merged
• write-sectors (int, optional) — sectors written
• write-ios (int, optional) — writes completed
• write-merges (int, optional) — write requests merged
• discard-sectors (int, optional) — sectors discarded
• discard-ios (int, optional) — discards completed successfully
• discard-merges (int, optional) — discard requests merged
• flush-ios (int, optional) — flush requests completed successfully
• read-ticks (int, optional) — time spent reading (ms)
• write-ticks (int, optional) — time spent writing (ms)
• discard-ticks (int, optional) — time spent discarding (ms)
• flush-ticks (int, optional) — time spent flushing (ms)
• ios-pgr (int, optional) — number of I/Os currently in flight
• total-ticks (int, optional) — time spent doing I/Os (ms)
• weight-ticks (int, optional) — weighted time spent doing I/Os since the last update of this field (ms)

Object GuestDiskStatsInfo

Availability: CONFIG_LINUX

Members

• name (string) — disk name
• major (int) — major device number of disk
• minor (int) — minor device number of disk
• stats (GuestDiskStats) — I/O statistics

Command guest-get-diskstats (Since: 7.1)

Availability: CONFIG_LINUX

Retrieve information about disk stats. 💾

Return [GuestDiskStatsInfo] — list of disk stats of guest.

Enum GuestCpuStatsType (Since: 7.1)

Availability: CONFIG_LINUX

Guest operating systems supporting CPU statistics 🧠

Values

• linux — Linux

Object GuestLinuxCpuStats (Since: 7.1)

Availability: CONFIG_LINUX

CPU statistics of Linux 🐧💜

Members

• cpu (int) — CPU index in guest OS
• user (int) — time spent in user mode
• nice (int) — time spent in user mode with low priority (nice)
• system (int) — time spent in system mode
• idle (int) — time spent in the idle task
• iowait (int, optional) — time waiting for I/O to complete (since Linux 2.5.41)
• irq (int, optional) — time servicing interrupts (since Linux 2.6.0-test4)
• softirq (int, optional) — time servicing softirqs (since Linux 2.6.0-test4)
• steal (int, optional) — stolen time by host (since Linux 2.6.11)
• guest (int, optional) — time spent running a virtual CPU for guest operating systems under the control of the Linux kernel (since Linux 2.6.24)
• guestnice (int, optional) — time spent running a niced guest (since Linux 2.6.33)

Object GuestCpuStats (Since: 7.1)

Availability: CONFIG_LINUX

Get statistics of each CPU in millisecond. ⏱️

Members

• type (GuestCpuStatsType) — guest operating system
• When type is linux: the members of GuestLinuxCpuStats.

Command guest-get-cpustats (Since: 7.1)

Availability: CONFIG_LINUX

Retrieve information about CPU stats. 🔥

Return [GuestCpuStats] — list of CPU stats of guest.

Object GuestLoadAverage (Since: 10.0)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32 or CONFIG_GETLOADAVG

Statistics about process load information 📈

Members

• load1m (number) — 1-minute load average
• load5m (number) — 5-minute load average
• load15m (number) — 15-minute load average

Command guest-get-load (Since: 10.0)

Availability: CONFIG_WIN32 or CONFIG_GETLOADAVG

Retrieve CPU process load information 🫶

Note: Windows doesn't have a load average API, so QGA emulates it by calculating the average CPU usage in the last 1, 5, 15 minutes — similar to how Linux does it. The calculation starts from the first time this command is called. 🕐

Return GuestLoadAverage — load information

Object GuestNetworkRoute (Since: 9.1 (Linux only); 11.0 (Windows))

Availability: CONFIG_LINUX or CONFIG_WIN32

Route information. Supported on Linux (since 9.1) and Windows (since 11.0). 🌐

Members

• iface (string) — the destination network or host's egress network interface in the routing table
• destination (string) — the IP address of the target network or host, the final destination of the packet
• metric (int) — route metric
• gateway (string, optional) — the IP address of the next hop router
• mask (string, optional) — subnet mask (IPv4 only)
• irtt (int, optional) — initial round-trip delay (not for windows, IPv4 only)
• flags (int, optional) — route flags (not for windows)
• refcnt (int, optional) — the route's reference count (not for windows)
• use (int, optional) — route usage count (not for windows)
• window (int, optional) — TCP window size, used for flow control (not for windows, IPv4 only)
• mtu (int, optional) — data link layer maximum packet size (not for windows)
• desprefixlen (string, optional) — destination prefix length (for IPv6)
• source (string, optional) — source IP address (for IPv6)
• srcprefixlen (string, optional) — source prefix length (for IPv6)
• nexthop (string, optional) — next hop IP address (for IPv6)
• version (int) — IP version (4 or 6)

Command guest-network-get-route (Since: 9.1 (Linux only); 11.0 (Windows))

Availability: CONFIG_LINUX or CONFIG_WIN32

Retrieve information about route of network. 🛰️

Return [GuestNetworkRoute] — list of route info of guest.

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COPYRIGHT 🎀

2026, The QEMU Project Developers

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and that's the whole page, bestie — you ate that 💅 This was QEMU-GA-REF(7) from the 11.1.3 era, dated Oct 29, 2026 — go forth and query your guests, icon 👑🦋