vws script is main workhorse of the first stage of project.

It allows to send commands to the vm

Starting and stopping

vws start [--no-gui] [--cdrom isofile] vmname

Starts machine. By default, immediately after machine starts, launches [vmgui] to connect it. If no DISPLAY environment variable is set or if --no-gui is specified, doesn't launch GUI. If --cdrom is specified, connects specified ISO to machine CDROM and boots it from it

If machine is running in the background, just launches vmgui, unless not asked to. If machine is running and gui is not needed, just exits immedieately with zero exit code.

If machine is not running and saved state exists, load saved state.

Semantic: "make this machine running*

vws stop vmname

Sends system_shutdown command to machine.

vmws save vmname

Saves machine state and terminates emulation.

vws reset vmname

Sends system_reset command to machine

Removable devices management

vws cdrom machine [id] [iso-file|--eject]

Connects given iso file (CDROM special device) to the machine or disconnects one. If there is more than one cdrom drive in the virtual machine, id should be specified.

vws usb insert machine [pattern|--address=bus:device]

Connects USB device which matches pattern or have specifed address

vws usb list 

List host devices available to connect to the machine

vws usb machine remove [pattern|id]

Removes device which matches pattern. Pattern is reqular expression which is matches against lsusb output, so vendorid:productid is perfectly valid pattern.

If there is more than one device which matches pattern, complains vws usb complans and exits with non-zero code.

Snapshots

vws snapshot machine

Creates a snapshot of machine.

vws revert machine

Reverts machine to previous snapshot, deleting current

vws commit machine

Commits snapshot into its backing file.

vws snapshots machine

List existing snapshots.

Screenshots and recording

vws screenshot machine filename.png

Makes a screenshot

vws record machine filename.wav

Start recording of machine sound output

vws stoprecord machine

Stop recording

Miscellaneous

vws monitor machine

Connects to monitor socket and send there commands, read from stdin and writes results to stdout. Provides way to interact with QEMU respecting locking

vws spiceurl machine

Outputs to stdout spice url needed to connect machine, if machine is running and exits with non-zero exit code if machine is not running.

Operation on multiple machines

vws list [--state] [--address] [-l]

List all machines set up via these tools. Option --state shows whether machine is running or not, --address - shows mac address -l is equevalent of both --state and --address

vws autostart

Starts all machines in the authostart directory

vws autostop

Tries to shutdown correctly all running machines.