title: How to Check and Restore QEMU Guest Agent?
created at: Thu Jul 18 2024 09:31:12 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
updated at: Mon Feb 10 2025 16:44:57 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
---
# How to Check and Restore QEMU Guest Agent?
QEMU Guest Agent is a daemon program that is installed on a VM. QEMU Guest Agent provides execution of commands on VMs and information exchange between VMs and the cluster node.
VMmanager uses QEMU Guest Agent to change network settings without rebooting. If the QEMU Guest Agent is unavailable for the platform for five minutes, VMmanager will reboot the VM to apply the settings.
To manage VM with CentOS OS, *guest-exec* function should be enabled in QEMU Guest Agent.
To avoid an unplanned reboot of the VM, you can check the status of the QEMU Guest Agent before changing the settings. This can be done on a VM or the cluster node.
# Diagnostics
1. Connect to the VM via SSH.
2. Define the status of the QEMU Guest Agent:
```
systemctl status qemu-guest-agent
```
```
Examples of responses:
QEMU Guest Agent is running
```
```
● qemu-guest-agent.service - QEMU Guest Agent Loaded:
loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/qemu-guest-agent.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled) Active:
active (running) since Вт 2021-08-10 05:25:54 UTC; 1 weeks 3 days ago
```
```
QEMU Guest Agent is stopped
```
```
● qemu-guest-agent.service - QEMU Guest Agent Loaded:
loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/qemu-guest-agent.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled) Active:
inactive (dead) since Пт 2021-08-20 06:27:16 UTC; 2s ag
```
```
QEMU Guest Agent is not installed
```
```
Unit qemu-guest-agent.service could not be found.
```
# Restoring work
## If QEMU Guest Agent is not installed
1. Connect to the VM via SSH.
2. Install QEMU Guest Agent:\
CentOS
```
yum install qemu-guest-agent
```
```
Debian, Ubuntu
```
```
apt install qemu-guest-agent
```
1. Add QEMU Guest Agent to the autostart:
```
systemctl enable --now qemu-guest-agent
```
1. Check the status of QEMU Guest Agent:
```
systemctl status qemu-guest-agent
```
1. Check the status of the SELinux service:
```
sestatus
```
```
If the status is different from disable:
1. Disable SELinux. Replace the below line in the **/etc/selinux/config **file
```
```
SELINUX=enforcing
```
```
with
```
```
SELINUX=disabled
```
```
1. Reboot the VM.
```
1. The file **/etc/sysconfig/qemu-ga** contains a line in the below format
```
BLACKLIST_RPC=guest-file-open,guest-file-close,guest-file-read,guest-file-write,guest-file-seek,guest-file-flush,guest-exec,guest-exec-status
```
```
1. Mark this line as a comment or delete it.
1. Restart QEMU Guest Agent:
```
```
systemctl restart qemu-guest-agent
```
## **If QEMU Guest Agent is stopped**
1. Connect to the VM via SSH.
2. Start QEMU Guest Agent:
```
systemctl start qemu-guest-agent
```
## If guest-exec function is disabled
1. Connect to the VM via SSH.
2. Run the command:
```
sed -i '/BLACKLIST_RPC=/cBLACKLIST_RPC=' /etc/sysconfig/qemu-ga
```
1. Restart QEMU Guest Agent:
```
systemctl restart qemu-guest-agent
```