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FLAKE-CTL-FIRECRACKER-SHOW(8)() FLAKE-CTL-FIRECRACKER-SHOW(8)()

Name

FLAKE-CTL-FIRECRACKER-SHOW(8) -

NAME

flake-ctl firecracker show - Show VM instances

SYNOPSIS

USAGE:

flake-ctl firecracker [--user] show [OPTIONS] OPTIONS:
--format <FORMAT>
--help


DESCRIPTION

Show the firecracker VM instances created from flake applications.

For each VM instance firecracker-pilot writes a meta data file named after the flake application. The files are stored below /tmp/flakes in a private directory of the user the instance belongs to, e.g /tmp/flakes/1000/myapp.vmid. The command reads these files and combines them with the information from the respective flake configuration file.

By default the information is rendered as a table with a headline which is meant to be read by humans. For processing it in scripts and other programs the machine readable formats json and csv are provided.

The following information is shown for each instance:

Name of the flake application the instance was created from. An instance started with the pilot option @NAME is shown with that name as a suffix
Name of the user the instance belongs to. Instances of other users are only shown if their meta data directory can be read
Process ID of the firecracker process running the VM. A process ID of zero belongs to a VM which was created but never started
running if the firecracker process of the VM still exists, stopped if it does not. The status is unknown if the meta data file does not contain a process ID
Name of the VM in the local firecracker registry the instance was created from
Path of the flake configuration file. The system wide registration is preferred over the registration in the flakes directory of the user the instance belongs to

Information which cannot be read is shown as - in the table format, as null in the json format and as an empty field in the csv format.

Please note, a meta data file also exists for an instance which is no longer running. The pilots delete them when they run the flake application again. Therefore the command can also show instances in the stopped status.

OPTIONS

Format of the output. Supported formats are:
  • table: human readable table with a headline. Default
  • json: machine readable list of instance records
  • csv: machine readable comma separated values without a header line

Show the instances of the user specific, rootless setup. Requesting user mode as the root user has no effect

FILES

  • /tmp/flakes
  • /usr/share/flakes
  • $HOME/.config/flakes
  • /etc/flakes.yml

EXAMPLE

$ flake-ctl firecracker show
$ flake-ctl firecracker show --format json


AUTHOR

Marcus Schäfer

COPYRIGHT

2026, Marcus Schäfer