Virtual Machine States Reference

This page is a complete reference of all the VM states that will be useful for developers and administrators doing troubleshooting.

The simplified life cycle is explained in Virtual Machine Instances. That simplified guide uses a smaller number of state names. The names here are the ones used by onevm list, e.g., prolog, prolog_migrate, and prolog_resume are all presented as prol. This section is intended as a reference for end users. However, the information in the Virtual Machine Instances guide should be enough for everyday administration tasks.

List of States

In OpenNebula a Virtual Machine has two variables to define its state: STATE and LCM_STATE. The LCM_STATE is only relevant when the STATE is ACTIVE. Both states can be seen from the CLI (onevm show) and from Sunstone (Info panel for the VM).

# State # LCM State Short State Alias Meaning
0 INIT init Internal initialization state right after VM creation, this state is not visible for the end users. And hence this state cannot be used to hook any action.
1 PENDING pend By default a VM starts in the pending state, waiting for a resource to run on. It will stay in this state until the scheduler decides to deploy it or the user deploys it using the onevm deploy command.
2 HOLD hold The owner has held the VM and it will not be scheduled until it is released. It can be, however, deployed manually.
3 ACTIVE 0 LCM_INIT init Internal initialization state, not visible for the end users.
1 PROLOG prol The system is transferring the VM files (disk images and the recovery file) to the Host in which the Virtual Machine will be running.
2 BOOT boot OpenNebula is waiting for the hypervisor to create the VM.
3 RUNNING runn The VM is running (note that this stage includes the internal virtualized machine booting and shutting down phases). In this state, the virtualization driver will periodically monitor it.
4 MIGRATE migr The VM is migrating from one Host to another. This is a hot migration.
5 SAVE_STOP save The system is saving the VM files after a stop operation.
6 SAVE_SUSPEND save The system is saving the VM files after a suspend operation.
7 SAVE_MIGRATE save The system is saving the VM files for a cold migration.
8 PROLOG_MIGRATE migr File transfers during a cold migration.
9 PROLOG_RESUME prol File transfers after a resume action (from stopped).
10 EPILOG_STOP epil File transfers from the Host to the system datastore.
11 EPILOG epil The system cleans up the Host used to virtualize the VM, and additionally disk images to be saved are copied back to their datastores.
12 SHUTDOWN shut OpenNebula has sent the VM the shutdown ACPI signal and is waiting for it to complete the shutdown process. If after a timeout period the VM does not disappear, OpenNebula will assume that the guest OS ignored the ACPI signal and the VM state will be changed to running instead of done.
15 CLEANUP_RESUBMIT clea Clean up after a delete-recreate action.
16 UNKNOWN unkn The VM couldn’t be monitored, it is in an unknown state.
17 HOTPLUG hotp A disk attach/detach operation is in progress.
18 SHUTDOWN_POWEROFF shut OpenNebula has sent the VM the shutdown ACPI signal and is waiting for it to complete the shutdown process. If after a timeout period the VM does not disappear, OpenNebula will assume that the guest OS ignored the ACPI signal and the VM state will be changed to running instead of poweroff.
19 BOOT_UNKNOWN boot OpenNebula is waiting for the hypervisor to create the VM (from UNKNOWN).
20 BOOT_POWEROFF boot OpenNebula is waiting for the hypervisor to create the VM (from POWEROFF).
21 BOOT_SUSPENDED boot OpenNebula is waiting for the hypervisor to create the VM (from SUSPENDED).
22 BOOT_STOPPED boot OpenNebula is waiting for the hypervisor to create the VM (from STOPPED).
23 CLEANUP_DELETE clea Cleanup after a delete action.
24 HOTPLUG_SNAPSHOT snap A system snapshot action is in progress.
25 HOTPLUG_NIC hotp A NIC attach/detach operation is in progress.
26 HOTPLUG_SAVEAS hotp A disk-saveas operation is in progress.
27 HOTPLUG_SAVEAS_POWEROFF hotp A disk-saveas operation (from POWEROFF) is in progress.
28 HOTPLUG_SAVEAS_SUSPENDED hotp A disk-saveas operation (from SUSPENDED) is in progress.
29 SHUTDOWN_UNDEPLOY shut OpenNebula has sent the VM the shutdown ACPI signal and is waiting for it to complete the shutdown process. If after a timeout period the VM does not disappear, OpenNebula will assume that the guest OS ignored the ACPI signal and the VM state will be changed to running instead of undeployed.
30 EPILOG_UNDEPLOY epil The system cleans up the Host used to virtualize the VM, and VM files are transferred to the system datastore.
31 PROLOG_UNDEPLOY prol File transfers after a resume action (from undeployed).
32 BOOT_UNDEPLOY boot OpenNebula is waiting for the hypervisor to create the VM (from UNDEPLOY).
33 HOTPLUG_PROLOG_POWEROFF hotp File transfers for a disk attach from poweroff.
34 HOTPLUG_EPILOG_POWEROFF hotp File transfers for a disk detach from poweroff.
35 BOOT_MIGRATE boot OpenNebula is waiting for the hypervisor to create the VM (from a cold migration).
36 BOOT_FAILURE fail Failure during a BOOT.
37 BOOT_MIGRATE_FAILURE fail Failure during a BOOT_MIGRATE.
38 PROLOG_MIGRATE_FAILURE fail Failure during a PROLOG_MIGRATE.
39 PROLOG_FAILURE fail Failure during a PROLOG.
40 EPILOG_FAILURE fail Failure during an EPILOG.
41 EPILOG_STOP_FAILURE fail Failure during an EPILOG_STOP.
42 EPILOG_UNDEPLOY_FAILURE fail Failure during an EPILOG_UNDEPLOY.
43 PROLOG_MIGRATE_POWEROFF migr File transfers during a cold migration (from POWEROFF).
44 PROLOG_MIGRATE_POWEROFF_FAILURE fail Failure during a PROLOG_MIGRATE_POWEROFF.
45 PROLOG_MIGRATE_SUSPEND migr File transfers during a cold migration (from SUSPEND).
46 PROLOG_MIGRATE_SUSPEND_FAILURE fail Failure during a PROLOG_MIGRATE_SUSPEND.
47 BOOT_UNDEPLOY_FAILURE fail Failure during a BOOT_UNDEPLOY.
48 BOOT_STOPPED_FAILURE fail Failure during a BOOT_STOPPED.
49 PROLOG_RESUME_FAILURE fail Failure during a PROLOG_RESUME.
50 PROLOG_UNDEPLOY_FAILURE fail Failure during a PROLOG_UNDEPLOY.
51 DISK_SNAPSHOT_POWEROFF snap A disk-snapshot-create action (from POWEROFF) is in progress.
52 DISK_SNAPSHOT_REVERT_POWEROFF snap A disk-snapshot-revert action (from POWEROFF) is in progress.
53 DISK_SNAPSHOT_DELETE_POWEROFF snap A disk-snapshot-delete action (from POWEROFF) is in progress.
54 DISK_SNAPSHOT_SUSPENDED snap A disk-snapshot-create action (from SUSPENDED) is in progress.
55 DISK_SNAPSHOT_REVERT_SUSPENDED snap A disk-snapshot-revert action (from SUSPENDED) is in progress.
56 DISK_SNAPSHOT_DELETE_SUSPENDED snap A disk-snapshot-delete action (from SUSPENDED) is in progress.
57 DISK_SNAPSHOT snap A disk-snapshot-create action (from RUNNING) is in progress.
59 DISK_SNAPSHOT_DELETE snap A disk-snapshot-delete action (from RUNNING) is in progress.
60 PROLOG_MIGRATE_UNKNOWN migr File transfers during a cold migration (from UNKNOWN).
61 PROLOG_MIGRATE_UNKNOWN_FAILURE fail Failure during a PROLOG_MIGRATE_UNKNOWN.
62 DISK_RESIZE dsrz Disk resize with the VM on RUNNING state.
63 DISK_RESIZE_POWEROFF dsrz Disk resize with the VM on POWEROFF state.
64 DISK_RESIZE_UNDEPLOYED dsrz Disk resize with the VM UNDEPLOYED.
65 HOTPLUG_NIC_POWEROFF hotp A NIC attach/detach operation (from POWEROFF) is in progress.
66 HOTPLUG_RESIZE hotp Hotplug resize VCPU and memory is in progress.
67 HOTPLUG_SAVEAS_UNDEPLOYED hotp A disk-saveas operation (from UNDEPLOYED) is in progress.
68 HOTPLUG_SAVEAS_STOPPED hotp A disk-saveas operation (from STOPPED) is in progress.
69 BACKUP back A backup operation is in progress (VM running).
70 BACKUP_POWEROFF back A backup operation is in progress (VM poweroff).
71 RESTORE rest A VM disks are restored from backup image.
4 STOPPED stop The VM is stopped. VM state has been saved and it has been transferred back along with the disk images to the system datastore.
5 SUSPENDED susp Same as stopped, but the files are left in the Host to later resume the VM there (i.e. there is no need to re-schedule the VM).
6 DONE done The VM is done. VMs in this state won’t be shown with onevm list but are kept in the database for accounting purposes. You can still get their information with the onevm show command.
8 POWEROFF poff Same as suspended, but no checkpoint file is generated. Note that the files are left in the Host to later boot the VM there. When the VM guest is shut down, OpenNebula will put the VM in this state.
9 UNDEPLOYED unde The VM is shut down. Similar to STOPPED, but no checkpoint file is generated. The VM disks are transferred to the system datastore. The VM can be resumed later.
10 CLONING clon The VM is waiting for one or more disk images to finish the initial copy to the repository (image state still in lock).
11 CLONING_FAILURE fail Failure during a CLONING. One or more of the images went into the ERROR state.

Diagram

You can click on the following image to zoom into it.

Virtual Machine States