---
title: Tools That Make Your Work with Oracle VM Easier
description: After your Oracle VM and Manager installation, you are ready to start with Oracle VM. To make your experience enjoyable, follow the steps listed here.
---

[Blog | Pythian ](https://www.pythian.com/blog)

# [Tools That Make Your Work with Oracle VM Easier](https://www.pythian.com/blog/tools-that-make-your-work-with-oracle-vm-easier)

 Written by [Yury Velikanov](https://www.pythian.com/blog/author/yury-velikanov) | May 17, 2012 4:00:00 AM

After completing your Oracle VM and Oracle VM Manager installation, you are ready to start your friendship with Oracle VM technology. However, to make your life and experience even more enjoyable, I suggest you follow a few simple steps listed below.

## Configuring Public Oracle YUM and Essential Tools

Configure Public Oracle YUM and install additional tools:

```
cd /etc/yum.repos.d wget https://public-yum.oracle.com/public-yum-el5.repo yum install man yum install vnc-server yum install firefox yum install telnet 
```

**Added on 2012.05.20**

```
yum install strace yum install time 
```

## Installing Oracle VM Utilities for Scripting and CLI Management

After some time playing with Oracle VM, you will realize that you’ll like to manage it via command prompt and scripts. Hopefully, Oracle will come with a command line interface (cli) soon. Meanwhile, you may want to install a set of tools from Wim Coekaerts @wimcoekaerts (Oracle VM team) that would do exactly that.

**MOS Patch 13602094**

```
cd /u01/app/oracle/ovm-manager-3/ unzip /tmp/ovm_utils_0.5.2.zip MANPATH=/u01/app/oracle/ovm-manager-3/ovm_utils/man:$MANPATH; export MANPATH 
```

As with the patch README’s, it isn’t too obvious what these tools could do for you. I’ll provide some parts of MAN pages below. Helpfully after reading these, you will no longer be doubtful of whether you should install those tools or not :) For official utilities documentation from Oracle, please see **Chapter 2. Using the Oracle VM Utilities** from the *Oracle® VM Utilities Guide for Release 3*.

Enjoy your Oracle VM experience, Yury

## Command Reference: ovm_managercontrol and ovm_poolcontrol

> **NOTES** The Oracle VM utilities are provided as-is and are not formally supported.

**NAME** `ovm_managercontrol` - basic Oracle VM Manager control utility

**SYNOPSIS**

`ovm_managercontrol [OPTIONS]`

**DESCRIPTION** `ovm_managercontrol` operates on the Oracle VM Manager level. The utility allows the admin to execute basic Manager level commands. Set up the YUM repository, create CPU Compatibility Groups and configure an SSL keystore.

... `-c COMMAND` Oracle VM Manager control command (required) `[yuminfo, setupyum, addkeystore, keystoreinfo, createcpugroup, removecpugroup, addservertocpugroup, removeserverfromcpugroup, listcpugroups, getsessiontimeout, setsessiontimeout]`

- **yuminfo**: display yum configuration
- **setupyum**: configure yum
- **addkeystore**: configure the SSL keystore
- **keystoreinfo**: display keystore file and path
- **createcpugroup**: create a CPU Compatibility group
- **removecpugroup**: delete CPU Compatibility group
- **addservertocpugroup**: add server to CPU Compatibility group
- **removeserverfromcpugroup**: remove server from CPU Compatibility group
- **listcpugroups**: list all CPU Compatibility groups and its servers
- **setsessiontimeout**: set VM Console session timeout
- **getsessiontimeout**: display VM Console session timeout

**NAME** `ovm_poolcontrol` - basic Oracle VM Pool control utility

**SYNOPSIS** `ovm_poolcontrol [OPTIONS]`

**DESCRIPTION** `ovm_poolcontrol` operates on the Oracle VM Server Pool level. The utility allows the admin to execute basic pool management commands, query status and info on a given Oracle VM server pool.

... `-c COMMAND` Oracle VM pool control command (required) `[list, events, status, info, refresh, addserver, removeserver]`

- **status**: display the current status of the server pool
- **info**: display server pool info such as memory, utilization, servers,...
- **list**: list all server pools registered with this Oracle VM Manager instance
- **events**: list all latest event types for this server pool
- **addserver**: add server to this server pool (-S server name)
- **removeserver**: remove server to this server pool (-S server name)
- **refresh**: refresh storage in the server pool

## Managing Repositories and Physical Servers

**NAME** `ovm_repocontrol` - basic Oracle VM Repository control utility

**SYNOPSIS** `ovm_repocontrol [OPTIONS]`

**DESCRIPTION** `ovm_repocontrol` allows you query the status of an Oracle VM repository. ... `-c COMMAND` repository control command (required) `[list, status, info, refresh, fixup, create]`

- **list**: list all repositories
- **status**: query repository status
- **info**: display repository information
- **refresh**: send a repository refresh command
- **fixup**: fix a failed repository create
- **create**: create repository on a storage device br

**NAME** `ovm_servercontrol` - basic Oracle VM Server control utility

**SYNOPSIS** `ovm_servercontrol [OPTIONS]`

**DESCRIPTION** `ovm_servercontrol` operates on a physical Oracle VM server. The utility allows the admin to execute basic server management commands, query status and info on a given Oracle VM server. ... `-c COMMAND` Oracle VM server control command (required)

`[start, stop, restart, kill, mainton, maintoff, status, info, lock, upgrade, list, events, discover, listnfsexports, deletenfsexport, createnfsexport]`

- **start**: use IPMI to power-on the server
- **stop**: shutdown the server
- **kill**: use IPMI to power-off the server
- **mainton**: turn on maintenance mode for this server
- **maintoff**: turn off maintenance mode for this server
- **status**: display the current status of the server (Running, Stopped,...)
- **info**: display server info such as memory, utilization, serverpool,...
- **lock**: temporarily lock the server disallowing any updates to happen
- **upgrade**: send an upgrade command to the server
- **list**: list all servers registered with this Oracle VM Manager instance
- **events**: list all latest event types for this server
- **discover**: discover server with provided hostname or IP address and Oracle VM agent password (-P)
- **listnfsexports**: list NFS exports on this server
- **deletenfsexport**: delete an NFS export on this server
- **createnfsexport**: create a new NFS export on this server

## Virtual Machine Control and Disk Backup Utilities

**NAME** `ovm_vmcontrol` - basic Oracle VM Virtual Machine(VM) control utility

**SYNOPSIS** `ovm_vmcontrol [OPTIONS]`

**DESCRIPTION** `ovm_vmcontrol` allows you to send basic VM control commands to the Oracle VM Management server. It allows you to start, stop, suspend, resume, kill, restart and list the VM(s). It is also possible to simply query the status of the Virtual Machine (Running, Stopped), get VM info, such as memory, serverpool, number of vCPUs etc. ... `-c COMMAND` Virtual Machine control command (required) `[start, stop, suspend, kill, resume, restart, status, info, lock, list, migrate, events, vcpuset, vcpuget, gettags, settags, fixcfg, delete]`

- **start**: start the Virtual Machine
- **stop**: Power-off the Virtual Machine
- **suspend**: Suspend a running Virtual Machine
- **kill**: Kill the Virtual Machine
- **resume**: Resume a suspended Virtual Machine
- **restart**: Restart a running Virtual Machine (Power-off, start)
- **status**: display the current status of the Virtual Machine (Running, Stopped, Suspended)
- **info**: display Virtual Machine info such as memory, utilization, serverpool,...
- **lock**: temporarily lock the server disallowing any updates to happen
- **events**: list all latest events for this Virtual Machine requiring acknowledgement
- **list**: list all Virtual Machines registered with this Oracle VM Manager instance
- **vcpuset**: bind virtual cpus to physical threads for this Virtual Machine
- **vcpuget**: list bindings of virtual cpus to physical threads for this Virtual Machine
- **settags**: store a set of comma separate custom tags for a Virtual Machine
- **gettags**: retrieve list of tags for this Virtual Machine
- **fixcfg**: fix Virtual Machine Configuration file
- **delete**: delete Virtual Machine

**NAME** `ovm_vmdisks` - basic Oracle VM Virtual Machine(VM) disk query utility

**SYNOPSIS** `ovm_vmdisks [OPTIONS]`

**DESCRIPTION** `ovm_vmdisks` is a utility designed to help the admin make backups of Virtual Machines. In particular when the Virtual Disks are files in a repository on a remote NFS server. The utility takes a Virtual Machine name or UUID and lists out every Virtual Disk file for that VM, including the Virtual Machine configuration file. This allows an admin to take the files listed in the output of the utility and back them up to a server or tape.

If the Virtual Disks are actual physical devices directly attached to the VM, the utility lists the device mapper device of server to which the VM is assigned. In the case of files on an NFS server, the utility lists the NFS servername, mountpoint and file name/location.

## Messaging Interfaces and Practical Usage Examples

**NAME** `ovm_vmmessage` - Oracle VM Virtual Machine Message Send/Receive utility

**SYNOPSIS** `ovm_vmmessage [OPTIONS]`

**DESCRIPTION** `ovm_vmmessage` is a utility that allows the user to send a message to a running Virtual Machine, or to query the value of a message sent from within a Virtual Machine to the Oracle VM Management server using the Oracle VM API messaging interface.

These values are basic key/value pairs such as `foo=bar`. New Oracle VM templates released by Oracle contain a configuration utility called `ovmd` which is used to do firstboot installation configuration. Either locally from the Virtual Machine console or remotely through this messaging interface. `ovmd` also allows the owner of the Virtual Machine to send messages back to the management server. 

**The following is an example of how you should run the utilities:**

```
[root@team5lab ovm_utils]# ovm_managercontrol -u admin -p < password >  -h localhost -c yuminfo Oracle VM Manager Control utility 0.5.2. Manager version : 3.1.1.305 Connected. Command : yuminfo YUM Repository information :         Base URL       : 'Undefined'         Enable GPG Key : 'false'         GPG Key        : 'undefined' Exit... [root@team5lab ovm_utils]#
```

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