virsh-tui

A keyboard-driven terminal UI for libvirt, with vim keys and live graphs.

Documentation · Install · Key bindings · Report a bug

virsh-tui shows every virtual machine on a libvirt connection with live CPU, memory, disk and network graphs, and lets you start, stop, snapshot, reconfigure and create them from the keyboard. Every action is a virsh (or virt-install) command, and virsh-tui shows you that command before and after it runs, so nothing happens behind your back and you can reuse it in a script.

It works with qemu:///system, qemu:///session and remote hosts over qemu+ssh://, with the same permissions virsh has.

Features

• Domains list with state chips, filtering, sorting, marks and bulk actions
• Lifecycle keys: start, ACPI shutdown (tracked until the guest stops), destroy, reboot, reset, pause, managed save, autostart, undefine
• Live monitor per domain: per-vCPU meters, memory and balloon, per-disk and per-NIC rates, with 60 s, 5 min and 1 h history
• Hardware editor that shows the XML diff and the exact commands before you apply with :w
• Snapshot tree with create, revert and delete
• Host view with per-thread CPU, memory, hugepages, KSM, pools and networks
• Networks with DHCP leases, owning domains, and pinning a lease as a static entry
• Storage pools and volumes with backing chains, plus ISO insert and eject
• Live libvirt event stream for domains, networks and pools
• Six-step new domain wizard that builds and runs virt-install
• : command line with Tab completion for commands, domains, themes, paths and every virsh flag; anything else is passed to virsh
• Fuzzy command palette, which-key hints, remappable keys
• Nine themes plus custom ones, a settings screen, and a 256-colour fallback
• --dry-run to see what each key would run, --demo to try it with no libvirt at all

Screenshots

Live monitor	Hardware editor with XML diff
New domain wizard	Host
Networks and DHCP leases	Command palette
Storage pools and volumes	Snapshot tree

Themes

catppuccin-mocha	gruvbox-dark
nord	dracula

All screenshots come from --demo mode.

Install

You need Linux, the libvirt client tools (virsh) and Rust 1.88 or newer. virt-install is used by the new domain wizard and virt-viewer by the graphical viewer.

cargo install --locked --git https://github.com/SyscallBrain/virsh-tui

Or build from a clone:

git clone https://github.com/SyscallBrain/virsh-tui
cd virsh-tui
cargo build --release
./target/release/virsh-tui

To manage qemu:///system, your user must be allowed to use it, which on most distributions means being in the libvirt group. The installation guide has the details.

Quick start

virsh-tui                        # default URI (qemu:///system)
virsh-tui -c qemu:///session     # per-user daemon
virsh-tui -c qemu+ssh://me@host/system
virsh-tui --demo                 # example data, nothing runs
virsh-tui --dry-run              # show commands instead of running them

Key	Action
j / k, gg / G	move
Enter / Backspace	open / back
1 … 5	Domains, Host, Networks, Storage, Events
s / S / D	start / shutdown / destroy
p / r / R	pause-resume / reboot / reset
c / v / e	console / viewer / edit XML
/	filter
Space	leader key: new domain, clone, snapshots, media…
:	command line (Tab completes)
Ctrl-p	command palette
?	all key bindings
,	settings
q	quit

Documentation

The user guide covers every view, the wizard, the command line, configuration, themes, key remapping and troubleshooting. Its source is in book/.

Configuration

Settings live in ~/.config/virsh-tui/config.toml, key overrides in keymap.toml and custom themes in themes/. The settings screen (,) and :set key=value write the file for you. See Configuration.

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. Read CONTRIBUTING.md for how to build, test and regenerate the screenshots.

License

MIT