cmx vm Cheat Sheet

A quick reference guide for all available Virtual Machine management commands in the cmx CLI.

Quick Reference Table

Category	Command	Description	Example
Provider	provider get	Show current default cloud provider	cmx vm provider get
	provider set <cloud>	Change default cloud provider	cmx vm provider set multipass
Lifecycle	start [name]	Start a new VM (auto-named if name omitted)	cmx vm start my-vm
	stop [name]	Stop a running VM	cmx vm stop
	restart [name]	Reboot a VM	cmx vm restart
	suspend [name]	Suspend VM to disk (if supported)	cmx vm suspend
	shelve [name]	Shelve VM (OpenStack only)	cmx vm shelve
	unshelve [name]	Unshelve a shelved VM (OpenStack only)	cmx vm unshelve
	delete [name]	Permanently remove a VM	cmx vm delete
	reset	Reset VM or restart provider daemon	cmx vm reset
	login [name]	Get connection info or log into VM	cmx vm login
	ssh [name]	Start an interactive SSH session	cmx vm ssh
Discovery	list	List all VMs for the active provider	cmx vm list
	info [name]	Get detailed information about a VM	cmx vm info
	image	List available VM images	cmx vm image
	flavor	List available hardware profiles	cmx vm flavor
	key list	List available SSH keys	cmx key list
	security-group	Manage security groups (list, create, assign)	cmx vm security-group list
SSH/Net	run [name] "cmd"	Run a command on the VM via SSH	cmx vm run "hostname"
	ssh-config [name]	Generate SSH config for ~/.ssh/config	cmx vm ssh-config
	key upload [path]	Upload a public key to the cloud (defaults to config or ~/.ssh/)	cmx key upload ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
	key delete <name>	Delete an SSH key from the cloud	cmx key delete my-key
System	config	Manage VM CLI configuration	cmx vm config
	account	View account usage and quotas	cmx vm account
	horizon	Open the OpenStack Horizon dashboard	cmx vm horizon

Tips

1. Contextual Memory

Most lifecycle commands (stop, delete, restart, login) remember the last VM you started. If you omit the [name], the tool automatically targets that VM.

2. Cloud Overrides

You don't need to change your default provider to run a command on another cloud. Use the --cloud flag:

cmx vm start --cloud aws

3. Interactive Mode

Tired of typing cmx vm? Enter the interactive shell:

cmx vm -i

4. Output Formats

The list command supports multiple output formats for scripting and automation: - --table (Default) - --json - --yaml - --csv