VMware virtual or not?

By Matt Fahrner, on April 3rd, 2017

Depending on naming, in a VMware environment you may not actually be sure if a Linux system is VMware or not. Here’s a quick command to find out:

sudo dmidecode -s system-manufacturer

1	sudo dmidecode -s system-manufacturer

which will generally output “VMware, Inc.” if VMware.

On older systems you may find “-s” doesn’t work, in which case just pipe “dmidecode” through grep looking for “VMware”.

UPDATE:

If “dmidecode” oddly isn’t available, you can also run:

lspci | grep -i vmware

1	lspci \| grep -i vmware

If you see “VMware” in the output, it’s a safe bet that it’s a VMware virtual.