ACRN Shell Commands

The ACRN shell is a text-based terminal for the hypervisor, accessible via the target system’s serial port. It is only available when the hypervisor build type is debug, the serial console port is configured, and a terminal emulator on your development computer is connected, typically via a serial-to-USB cable.

The ACRN shell provides useful debugging commands for displaying internal system states, environment settings, and hypervisor statistics as well as reading and writing CPU model-specific registers (MSR).

A short command history is maintained that lets you use the UP and DOWN keys to browse the command history and HOME, END, LEFT, and RIGHT keys to select an edit point within the command.

Here’s the list of commands supported by the ACRN shell, followed by example uses of these commands:

Command (and parameters)	Description
help	Display information about supported hypervisor shell commands.
version	Display the hypervisor version information.
vm_list	List all VMs, displaying the VM UUID, ID, name, and state (“Started”=running).
vcpu_list	List all vCPUs in all VMs.
vcpu_dumpreg <vm_id> <vcpu_id>	Dump registers for a specific vCPU.
dump_host_mem <hva> <length>	Dump the host memory region as specified by the start of the region hva (in hexadecimal) and its length length (in bytes, decimal number).
dump_guest_mem <vm_id> <gva> <length>	Dump a User VM (guest) memory region based on the VM ID (vm_id, in decimal), the start of the memory region gva (in hexadecimal), and its length length (in bytes, decimal number).
vm_console <vm_id>	Switch to the VM’s console. Use Ctrl + Alt + Space to return to the ACRN shell console.
int	List interrupt information per CPU.
pt	Show passthrough device information.
vioapic <vm_id>	Show virtual IOAPIC (vIOAPIC) information for a specific VM.
dump_ioapic	Show native IOAPIC information.
loglevel <console_loglevel> <mem_loglevel> <npk_loglevel>	If no parameters are given, the command will return the level of logging for the console, memory, and npk. Give (up to) three parameters between 0 (none) and 6 (verbose) to set the loglevel for the console, memory, and npk (in that order). If fewer than three parameters are given, the loglevels for the remaining areas will not be changed.
cpuid <leaf> [subleaf]	Display the CPUID leaf [subleaf], in hexadecimal.
rdmsr [-p<pcpu_id>] <msr_index>	Read the model-specific register (MSR) at index msr_index (in hexadecimal) for CPU ID pcpu_id.
wrmsr [-p<pcpu_id>] <msr_index> <value>	Write value (in hexadecimal) to the model-specific register (MSR) at index msr_index (in hexadecimal) for CPU ID pcpu_id.

Command Examples

The following sections provide further details and examples for some of these commands.

vm_list

The vm_list command provides the name of each virtual machine and its corresponding ID and state.

Figure 56 vm_list information

vcpu_list

The vcpu_list command provides information about virtual CPUs (vCPU), including the VM ID, pCPU ID, vCPU ID, vCPU role (primary or secondary), and vCPU state (init, paused, running, zombie, or unknown).

Figure 57 vcpu_list information

vcpu_dumpreg

The vcpu_dumpreg <vm_id> <vcpu_id> command provides vCPU-related information such as register values.

In the following example, we dump the vCPU0 RIP register value and get into the Service VM to search for the running function, using these commands:

cat /proc/kallsyms | grep RIP_value

As you can see, vCPU0 is running in function acpi_idle_do_entry.

Figure 58 vcpu_dumpreg information

Figure 59 system map information

dump_host_mem

The dump_host_mem <hva> <length> command provides the specified memory target data such as the physical CPU (pCPU) number.

In this example, we know the pCPU active bitmap and physical CPU number physical memory address through build/hypervisor/acrn.map. (Note that the path for acrn.map depends on how we build the hypervisor.)

Then we can dump the memory address of the pCPU active bitmap and CPU number. The pCPU active bitmap is 0x000000000000000f and pCPU number is 0x0000000000000004.

Figure 60 dumpmem information

Figure 61 acrn map information

dump_guest_mem

The dump_guest_mem <vm_id> <gva> <length> command dumps guest memory information according to the given VM ID and guest virtual address (gva).

In this example, we know the starting address of the kernel text segment in the guest console or through the system.map. (Note that the path for system.map depends on how we build the kernel.)

Figure 62 guest virtual address

Figure 63 guest memory information

vm_console

The vm_console <vm_id> command switches the ACRN’s console to become the VM’s console. Press Ctrl + Alt + Space to return to the ACRN shell console.

vioapic

The vioapic <vm_id> command shows the virtual IOAPIC information for a specific VM. In the following figure, we show the virtual IOAPIC information for VM1:

Figure 64 vioapic information

dump_ioapic

The dump_ioapic command provides IOAPIC information and we can get IRQ number, IRQ vector number, etc.

Figure 65 dump_ioapic information

pt

The pt command provides passthrough detailed information, such as the virtual machine number, interrupt type, interrupt request, interrupt vector, and trigger mode.

Figure 66 pt information

int

The int command provides interrupt information on all CPUs and their corresponding interrupt vector.

Figure 67 int information

cpuid

The cpuid <leaf> [subleaf] command provides the CPUID leaf [subleaf] in hexadecimal.

Figure 68 cpuid information

rdmsr

We can read a model-specific register (MSR) to get register values through rdmsr [-p<pcpu_id>] <msr_index>.

In the following example, we can get the IA32_APIC_BASE value of pCPU 0 through the command:

rdmsr -p0 1b

and see that 1B (Hexadecimal) is the IA32_APIC_BASE MSR address.

Figure 69 IA32_APIC_BASE register information

Figure 70 rdmsr information

wrmsr

We can write to a model-specific register (MSR) to set register values through wrmsr [-p<pcpu_id>] <msr_index> <value>.

In the following example, we can set the IA32_APIC_BASE value of pCPU 1 through the command:

wrmsr -p1 1b 0xfee00c00