CLI Quick Reference & Cheat Sheet

Cheat SheetpvclipivirtctlTalos & KVM

A quick lookup guide for the most frequently used commands across pvcli, pivirtctl, and PiVirt hypervisor operations.

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pvcli (Cloud & Multi-Node VPS Management)

pvcli connects to the PiVirt Agent via ConnectRPC / gRPC.

VM Operations

# List VMs with status and IP addresses
pvcli vm list
pvcli vm ls

# Get detailed VM state (JSON, YAML, or table)
pvcli vm get <vm-id-or-name>
pvcli vm get web-server-01 -o yaml

# Create a VM
pvcli vm create --name web-server --cpus 4 --memory 8G --disk 50G --image ubuntu-24.04

# Power management
pvcli vm start <vm-id>
pvcli vm stop <vm-id>
pvcli vm restart <vm-id>
pvcli vm pause <vm-id>
pvcli vm unpause <vm-id>

# Clone & Rebuild
pvcli vm clone <source-vm-id> --name <new-vm-name>
pvcli vm rebuild <vm-id> --image ubuntu-24.04

# Delete VM (with attached disks)
pvcli vm delete <vm-id> --force

Disks & Storage

# List storage volumes
pvcli disk list

# Create a new disk
pvcli disk create --name data-vol --size 100G --pool default

# Attach/detach disk to a VM
pvcli disk attach <disk-id> --vm <vm-id>
pvcli disk detach <disk-id> --vm <vm-id>

# Extend disk capacity online
pvcli disk extend <disk-id> --size 200G

# Delete disk
pvcli disk delete <disk-id>

Images & Catalog

# List available cloud images
pvcli image list

# Download OS image from registry
pvcli image pull ubuntu-24.04
pvcli image pull debian-12

# Upload custom QCOW2/RAW image
pvcli image upload --file ./custom-app.qcow2 --name custom-app-v1

# Delete image
pvcli image delete <image-id>

Networks & Interfaces

# List virtual networks and bridges
pvcli network list

# Create network
pvcli network create --name tenant-net --subnet 192.168.10.0/24 --gateway 192.168.10.1

# Manage VM network interfaces
pvcli network interfaces <vm-id>
pvcli network add-interface <vm-id> --network tenant-net
pvcli network remove-interface <vm-id> --mac 52:54:00:12:34:56

Auth & Contexts

# Authenticate via OAuth2 Device Code flow
pvcli auth login
pvcli auth whoami
pvcli auth logout

# Context management (switch clusters / endpoints)
pvcli context list
pvcli context current
pvcli context add prod agent.prod.pilab.hu 5001
pvcli context add dev localhost 5001 --insecure
pvcli context switch prod

# Launch Interactive Terminal UI (TUI)
pvcli ui

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pivirtctl (Local Hypervisor Daemon Management)

pivirtctl talks directly to the local pivirtd daemon over Unix domain socket (/var/lib/pivirt/daemon/pivirtd.sock).

# Set custom socket if needed
export PIVIRTD_SOCKET=/var/lib/pivirt/daemon/pivirtd.sock

# VM lifecycle on local node
pivirtctl vm list
pivirtctl vm info <vm-id>
pivirtctl vm start <vm-id>
pivirtctl vm stop <vm-id>
pivirtctl vm reset <vm-id>
pivirtctl vm delete <vm-id>

# Snapshots
pivirtctl vm snapshot create <vm-id> --name pre-upgrade-snap
pivirtctl vm snapshot list <vm-id>
pivirtctl vm snapshot revert <vm-id> --name pre-upgrade-snap

# Storage pools and volumes
pivirtctl storage pool list
pivirtctl storage volume list --pool default

# Network bridges & interfaces
pivirtctl network list

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Talos Linux Kubernetes Cluster Quick Ops

# 1. Generate machine configs with talosctl
talosctl gen config talos-cluster https://10.0.0.10:6443 --output-dir ./cluster-config

# 2. Place machine config for a node
mkdir -p /var/lib/pivirt/vms/talos-cp-0
cp ./cluster-config/controlplane.yaml /var/lib/pivirt/vms/talos-cp-0/talos-config

# 3. Create & start Talos node in pivirtd
pivirtctl vm create talos-cp-0 --vcpus 4 --memory 8192 --disk size=40GB,format=qcow2
pivirtctl vm start talos-cp-0

# 4. Bootstrap cluster once control plane has booted
talosctl --talosconfig ./cluster-config/talosconfig -n 10.0.0.10 bootstrap

# 5. Fetch kubeconfig
talosctl --talosconfig ./cluster-config/talosconfig -n 10.0.0.10 kubeconfig .
kubectl --kubeconfig ./kubeconfig get nodes

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Host Services & Troubleshooting One-Liners

Systemd Daemons

# pivirtd status & logs
sudo systemctl status pivirtd
sudo journalctl -u pivirtd -f

# agent status & logs
sudo systemctl status agent
sudo journalctl -u agent -f

# Restart services
sudo systemctl restart pivirtd
sudo systemctl restart agent

Networking & OVS

# Check Open vSwitch bridge status
sudo ovs-vsctl show
sudo ovs-vsctl list-ports br-provision

# Inspect IPTables metadata redirect
sudo iptables -t nat -L PREROUTING -n -v | grep 169.254.169.254

# Check TAP interface stats
ip link show type tun

Storage & iSCSI

# Scan iSCSI targets
sudo iscsiadm -m discovery -t sendtargets -p <storage-ip>:3260

# Inspect multipath status
sudo multipath -ll

# Check OCFS2 cluster status
sudo o2cb.init status