Chapter 6. Shutting down virtual machines

Procedure

1. To shut down a responsive VM, do one of the following:

   • If you are connected to the guest, use a shutdown command or a GUI element appropriate to the guest operating system.

     Note

     In some environments, such as in Linux guests that use the GNOME Desktop, using the GUI power button for suspending or hibernating the guest might instead shut down the VM.

   • Alternatively, use the virsh shutdown command on the host:

     • If the VM is on a local host:

       # virsh shutdown <demo-guest1>

       Successful output:

       Domain 'demo-guest1' is being shutdown

     • If the VM is on a remote host (in this example 192.0.2.1):

       # virsh -c qemu+ssh://root@192.0.2.1/system shutdown <demo-guest1>

       Successful output:

       root@192.0.2.1's password:
       Domain 'demo-guest1' is being shutdown

2. If the VM is not responding, you can force it to shut down. To do this, use the virsh destroy command on the host:

   # virsh destroy <demo-guest1>

   Successful output:

   Domain 'demo-guest1' destroyed

   Important

   The virsh destroy command does not actually delete or remove the VM configuration or disk images. It only terminates the running instance of the VM, similarly to pulling the power cord from a physical machine.

   However, in rare cases, virsh destroy might cause corruption of the VM’s file system, so use this command only if all other shutdown methods have failed.