Best way to restart a VM from command line since `qvm-restart` doesn't appear to exist?

pypy · May 23, 2026, 1:18am

Background: I want to restart a VM from a dom0 command line instead of via the Qubes Manager GUI. I was surprised to find that qvm-restart doesn’t exist. But since qvm-shutdown and qvm-start exist, I figured I could just chain those together. But if VM I want to restart is connected to other VMs (e.g. sys-firewall), qvm-shutdown gives an error. I could use qvm-kill or qvm-shutdown --force but those options seem excessive… Since I can restart any VM via the Qubes Manager GUI, I suspect there is a more elegant way.

What is the chain of commands that the Qubes Manager GUI uses to restart a VM?

rustybird · May 23, 2026, 8:31am

Looks like Qube Manager essentially does the same as qvm-shutdown --force --wait -- vmname followed by qvm-start -- vmname:

github.com/QubesOS/qubes-manager

qubesmanager/qube_manager.py

v4.3.21-1


      
                      self.tr("Are you sure you want to restart the Qube <b>'{0}'</b>"
                              "?<br><small>This will shutdown all the running applica"
                              "tions within this Qube.</small>").format(vm.name),
                      QMessageBox.StandardButton.Yes |
                      QMessageBox.StandardButton.Cancel)
          
                  if reply == QMessageBox.StandardButton.Yes:
                      # in case the user shut down the VM in the meantime
                      try:
                          if manager_utils.is_running(vm, False):
                              self.shutdown_vm(vm, force=True, and_restart=True)
                          else:
                              self.start_vm(vm)
                      except exc.QubesException as ex:
                          QMessageBox.warning(
                              self,
                              self.tr("Error restarting Qube!"),
                              self.tr("ERROR: {0}").format(ex))
          
          # noinspection PyArgumentList
          @pyqtSlot(name='on_action_killvm_triggered')

unman · May 23, 2026, 8:50am

Background: I want to restart a VM from a dom0 command line instead of via the Qubes Manager GUI. I was surprised to find that qvm-restart doesn’t exist. But since qvm-shutdown and qvm-start exist, I figured I could just chain those together. But if VM I want to restart is connected to other VMs (e.g. sys-firewall), qvm-shutdown gives an error. I could use qvm-kill or qvm-shutdown --force but those options seem excessive… Since I can restart any VM via the Qubes Manager GUI, I suspect there is a more elegant way.

I’m not particulary elegant, and use qvm-kill liberally, particularly
in restart.

What is the chain of commands that the Qubes Manager GUI uses to restart a VM?
shutdown_vm(vm, force=True, and_restart=True)

I never presume to speak for the Qubes team. When I comment in the Forum I speak for myself.

otter2 · May 23, 2026, 5:34pm

You can add it yourself - pr is not merged (but has problems):

github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues

[feature request] qvm-restart

opened 10:31AM - 20 Jan 19 UTC

GammaSQ

C: core P: default pr submitted

An easy fix for most VM-internal problems is to reboot the VM. Especially with V…Ms supplying networking, USB-device or similar, this isn't a simple matter of `qvm-shutdown VM --wait && qvm-start VM`. What I'm hoping for is a command that restarts the VM and restores the state as good as possible. That means unplugging everything connected to the VM, unplugging everything the VM is connected to, shutting down (asking weather a kill is in order if that takes too long), rebooting and reconnecting everything. In the case of networking VMs, it should be a simple matter of storing the connections, rebooting and reconnecting all connected VMs. It's more tricky when block-devices are involved. E.g. a VM decrypting a block device and that being attached to another VM, Users have to take care of decryption themselves. I'm not sure weather a simple error after the fact ("can't reconnect DecryptVM:dm-0 to ConnectedVM: does not exist!") is okay, or a warning/conformation before restart is necessary ("You are about to restart a VM that supplies devices: dm-0 to ConnectedVM; continue?") Furthermore, I'm not sure weather a dispVM should actually restart, or by default shut down, be deleted, and another dispVM takes its place. Since this is intended to recover from error-states, excluding devices to be attached after reboot might be a good idea, something like `--no-usb`; `--no-block`, `--no-pci`. (e.g. a network-vm with attached wifi-dongle might have issues because of it.)

p.s. I picked up the original pr:

pypy · May 24, 2026, 2:18am

Thanks for putting in the pr request! I don’t have a github account… I’m still just learning how to use command line