OpenVZ (Virtuozzo) vzctl Commands: Quick Reference

If you manage servers that use OpenVZ (Virtuozzo), chances are you’ll spend a lot of time working with vzctl to start, stop, and maintain containers (CTs). While modern virtualization has largely moved on to KVM, Docker, and LXC, plenty of production systems still rely on OpenVZ—especially for legacy applications.

This guide provides a quick reference of essential vzctl commands for day-to-day container administration.

List All Containers

vzlist -a

Displays all containers (including stopped ones).

Start and Stop Containers

Stop a specific container:

vzctl stop CTID

Stop all containers on a node:

for ctid in $(vzlist -Ho ctid); do vzctl stop $ctid; done

Start a specific container:

vzctl start CTID

Start all containers on a node:

for ctid in $(vzlist -Ho ctid); do vzctl start $ctid; done

Restart a container:

vzctl restart CTID

Suspend Containers

Suspend a specific container:

vzctl set CTID --disabled yes --save

Suspend all containers on a node:

for ctid in $(vzlist -SHo ctid); do vzctl set $ctid --disabled yes --save; done

Networking

List IP addresses assigned to each container:

for CT in $(vzlist -o ctid); do 
    echo "== CT $CT ==" 
    vzctl exec $CT ifconfig | grep 'inet addr:' | cut -d : -f 2 | awk '{print $1}' | grep -v ^127
done

This will output each container’s IP(s), excluding loopback addresses.

Backups

Create a snapshot of a specific container with vzdump:

vzdump CTID --dumpdir /vz/back --tmpdir /vz/test --snapshot

• /vz/test → Temporary working directory used during the dump.
• /vz/back → Directory where the final snapshot is saved.

Final Thoughts

OpenVZ may be a legacy platform, but it remains widely used in production environments where lightweight containerization and minimal overhead are essential. Having a vzctl quick reference can save you time and frustration when working with multiple containers on the same host.

Keep this cheat sheet handy, and you’ll be able to manage your VMs more efficiently.