Proxmox Cheat Sheet: CLI Commands for VMs, LXC and Storage

Proxmox VE (Virtual Environment) is an open-source hypervisor platform built on Debian Linux, combining KVM virtualisation for full virtual machines and LXC for lightweight containers on a single host. All commands below are run over SSH directly on the Proxmox node as root (or with sudo where configured). The three primary CLI namespaces are: qm for KVM virtual machine management, pct for LXC container management, and pvesm for storage management. VMID and CTID refer to the numeric identifiers assigned to each VM or container.

VM Management (qm)

List and Status

Command	Description
qm list	List all VMs with their ID, name, status, memory, and CPU
qm status VMID	Show current running status of a specific VM
qm config VMID	Display the full configuration of a VM (hardware, disks, network)
qm showcmd VMID	Show the exact QEMU command that Proxmox uses to start the VM

Start, Stop, Reset

Command	Description
qm start VMID	Start a VM
qm stop VMID	Immediately stop a VM (hard power-off, no graceful shutdown)
qm shutdown VMID	Send ACPI shutdown signal (graceful guest shutdown)
qm reboot VMID	Send ACPI reboot signal to the guest
qm reset VMID	Hard reset the VM (equivalent to pressing the reset button)
qm suspend VMID	Suspend VM to RAM (pause execution)
qm resume VMID	Resume a suspended VM

Create and Delete

Command	Description
qm create VMID --name myvm --memory 2048 --cores 2 --net0 virtio,bridge=vmbr0	Create a new VM with the specified ID, name, RAM (MB), CPU cores, and network interface
qm destroy VMID	Permanently delete a VM and all associated disk images
qm clone VMID NEWID --name newname	Clone an existing VM to a new VM ID with a new name
qm template VMID	Convert a VM into a template (read-only base for cloning)

Snapshots

Command	Description
qm snapshot VMID snapname	Create a snapshot of the VM with the given name
qm listsnapshot VMID	List all snapshots for the VM
qm rollback VMID snapname	Roll back the VM to the named snapshot
qm delsnapshot VMID snapname	Delete a specific snapshot

Disk Operations

Command	Description
qm disk import VMID /path/to/disk.img local-lvm	Import a raw or QCOW2 disk image into a VM on the specified storage
qm resize VMID scsi0 +20G	Increase the size of the scsi0 disk by 20 GB (use scsi0, virtio0, etc. to match your config)
qm move-disk VMID scsi0 target-storage	Move a VM disk from its current storage to a different storage pool

Console and Execution

Command	Description
qm terminal VMID	Attach to the VM’s serial console (requires a serial port configured in the VM)
qm guest exec VMID -- command	Run a command inside the guest OS (requires QEMU Guest Agent to be installed and running)
qm agent VMID ping	Test whether the QEMU Guest Agent is responding inside the VM
qm monitor VMID	Open the QEMU monitor prompt for low-level VM control

LXC Container Management (pct)

List and Status

Command	Description
pct list	List all LXC containers with their ID, status, and name
pct status CTID	Show the running status of a specific container
pct config CTID	Display the full configuration of a container

Start, Stop, Enter

Command	Description
pct start CTID	Start a container
pct stop CTID	Immediately stop a container (hard stop)
pct shutdown CTID	Gracefully shut down a container
pct reboot CTID	Reboot a container gracefully
pct enter CTID	Attach an interactive shell session to the container console
pct exec CTID -- command	Execute a single command inside the container without an interactive shell

Create and Delete

Command	Description
pct create CTID local:vztmpl/ubuntu-22.04-standard_22.04-1_amd64.tar.zst --hostname myct --memory 512 --cores 1 --rootfs local-lvm:8 --net0 name=eth0,bridge=vmbr0,ip=dhcp --password	Create a container from a template; sets hostname, memory (MB), CPU cores, root filesystem size (GB), network interface with DHCP, and prompts for root password
pct destroy CTID	Permanently delete a container and its storage
pct clone CTID NEWID --hostname newname	Clone an existing container to a new ID with a new hostname

Snapshots

Command	Description
pct snapshot CTID snapname	Create a snapshot of the container (requires LVM-thin or ZFS storage)
pct listsnapshot CTID	List all snapshots for the container
pct rollback CTID snapname	Roll back the container to the named snapshot
pct delsnapshot CTID snapname	Delete a specific container snapshot

Mount and File Access

Command	Description
pct mount CTID	Mount the container’s root filesystem on the host at /var/lib/lxc/CTID/rootfs (container must be stopped)
pct unmount CTID	Unmount the container’s root filesystem from the host
pct push CTID /local/file /container/path	Copy a file from the Proxmox host into the container
pct pull CTID /container/file /local/path	Copy a file from the container to the Proxmox host

Storage Management (pvesm)

Command	Description
pvesm status	Show all configured storage pools with their type, status, total size, and free space
pvesm list STORAGE	List all volumes (disk images, templates, backups) in a specific storage pool
pvesm scan STORAGE	Rescan a storage backend and refresh the volume list
pvesm add TYPE NAME options	Add a new storage definition (e.g. pvesm add nfs nfs-share --server 192.168.1.5 --export /data)
pvesm remove NAME	Remove a storage definition from Proxmox (does not delete the underlying data)

Common storage types: dir (directory), lvm (LVM volume group), lvmthin (LVM thin pool), nfs, cifs, zfspool, rbd (Ceph RADOS Block Device).

LVM Thin Pool Commands

Command	Description
lvs	List all logical volumes with size, pool, and data usage
vgs	List all volume groups with total and free space
pvs	List all physical volumes and which volume group they belong to
lvcreate -L 20G -n myvolume vg0	Create a new 20 GB logical volume named myvolume in volume group vg0
lvextend -L +10G /dev/vg0/myvolume	Extend an existing logical volume by 10 GB
lvremove /dev/vg0/myvolume	Remove a logical volume (irreversible — confirm with -f to skip prompt)

Node and Cluster Management

Command	Description
pvesh get /nodes	List all nodes in the cluster via the Proxmox REST API shell
pvesh get /nodes/NODE/status	Show CPU, memory, and disk usage for a specific node
pvesh get /cluster/status	Show cluster-wide status including quorum and member state
pvecm status	Show Corosync cluster membership and quorum status
pvecm nodes	List all cluster nodes with their node ID and name
ha-manager status	Show the High Availability manager status for all HA-managed resources
pveversion	Display the installed Proxmox VE version
pveupdate	Check for available Proxmox VE package updates (does not apply them)
apt update && apt dist-upgrade	Apply all available updates including kernel and Proxmox packages

Network Configuration

Command	Description
cat /etc/network/interfaces	View the current network interface configuration file
ip a	Show all network interfaces with their IP addresses and state
brctl show	List all Linux bridges and their attached interfaces
pvesh get /nodes/NODE/network	List network interfaces via the Proxmox API (shows pending changes before apply)
ifup vmbr0	Bring up a network bridge or interface
ifdown vmbr0	Bring down a network bridge or interface

A typical /etc/network/interfaces configuration with a Linux bridge on a single NIC:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto enp3s0
iface enp3s0 inet manual

auto vmbr0
iface vmbr0 inet static
    address 192.168.1.10/24
    gateway 192.168.1.1
    bridge-ports enp3s0
    bridge-stp off
    bridge-fd 0

After editing /etc/network/interfaces, apply changes with ifreload -a (from the ifupdown2 package, which Proxmox installs by default) to avoid losing network connectivity mid-session.

Backup and Restore

Command	Description
vzdump VMID --storage local --mode snapshot	Back up a VM to the local storage using snapshot mode (online, minimal downtime)
vzdump VMID --dumpdir /mnt/backup --compress zstd	Back up a VM to a specific directory path with Zstandard compression
qmrestore /var/lib/vz/dump/vzdump-qemu-VMID-*.vma NEWVMID	Restore a VM backup archive to a new VM ID
pct restore NEWCTID /var/lib/vz/dump/vzdump-lxc-CTID-*.tar.zst	Restore an LXC container backup to a new container ID

Backup Modes

Mode	Flag	Behaviour
stop	--mode stop	Shuts the VM/container down before backup and restarts afterwards. Safest, ensures consistency. Results in downtime.
suspend	--mode suspend	Briefly pauses the VM, takes a copy of the disk, then resumes. Short downtime window.
snapshot	--mode snapshot	Online backup with no downtime. Requires QEMU Guest Agent, or LVM-thin/ZFS storage for data consistency.

To schedule automated backups, use the Proxmox web UI under Datacenter → Backup, or add a cron entry to /etc/cron.d/vzdump directly.

ZFS Commands (if using ZFS storage)

Command	Description
zpool status	Show health status of all ZFS pools including device errors
zpool list	List all pools with size, allocated space, and free space
zfs list	List all ZFS datasets and volumes with usage and mount points
zfs list -t snapshot	List all ZFS snapshots across all datasets
zfs snapshot pool/dataset@snapname	Create a named snapshot of a dataset
zfs rollback pool/dataset@snapname	Roll back a dataset to the named snapshot (destroys later snapshots by default)
zfs destroy pool/dataset@snapname	Delete a specific ZFS snapshot
zfs get all pool/dataset	Display all ZFS properties for a dataset (compression, quota, record size, etc.)
zpool scrub poolname	Initiate a data integrity scrub on a pool (reads all data and verifies checksums)
zpool iostat -v	Show per-device I/O statistics for all pools

Logs and Diagnostics

Command	Description
journalctl -u pve-cluster	View logs for the Proxmox cluster service (pve-cluster)
journalctl -u pvedaemon	View logs for the Proxmox API daemon
journalctl -u qemu-server@VMID	View logs for a specific VM’s QEMU process
cat /var/log/pve/tasks/active	View the active task log (backups, migrations, snapshots in progress)
pvesubscription get	Check the current Proxmox subscription status and expiry
pveceph status	Show Ceph cluster health status (only applicable if Ceph is configured)

Useful One-Liners

# List all VMs and containers with status
qm list && pct list

# Show resource usage for all VMs on a node (replace NODE with hostname)
pvesh get /nodes/NODE/qemu --output-format json | python3 -m json.tool

# Force-stop a frozen VM (bypasses lock checks)
qm stop VMID --skiplock 1

# Find which storage a VM's disks are on
qm config VMID | grep -E "scsi|virtio|ide|sata"

# Bulk snapshot all currently running VMs
for vmid in $(qm list | awk 'NR>1 && $3=="running" {print $1}'); do
    qm snapshot $vmid auto-$(date +%Y%m%d)
done

# Check the full Proxmox version string including package versions
pveversion -v

# Watch the cluster task log live
tail -f /var/log/pve/tasks/active

# List available LXC templates in local storage
pveam list local

# Download an LXC template from the Proxmox template repository
pveam update && pveam download local ubuntu-22.04-standard_22.04-1_amd64.tar.zst

# Check disk usage on the Proxmox host itself
df -h && lvs

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