VM Manager for VS Code
Manage your virtual machines without leaving VS Code. See every machine at a glance, start and stop
them, change their settings and work in their consoles in an editor tab, next to your code.
- One place for all your hypervisors: Hyper-V and QEMU today, more to come.
- Consoles in the editor: the machine's screen or its serial console in a tab, which you can
drag to another window.
- Looks like VS Code: everything follows your theme and uses the views, menus and command
palette you already know.
Get started
Install a provider for your hypervisor. VM Manager itself does not talk to any hypervisor;
providers do:
Proxmox VE, XCP-ng, VMware and Nutanix are planned.
Open the Virtual Machines view in the activity bar and click Add Cluster.
Your machines appear in the view. Right-click one for everything you can do with it.
The walkthrough (VM: Get Started with VM Manager) shows the same steps.
Find your way around
Machines are grouped as cluster → node → virtual machine:
Local (Hyper-V) ← cluster: one hypervisor you added
└─ DESKTOP-ALEX ← node: a host in it
├─ web-01 Running ← virtual machines
└─ db-01 Off
- Virtual Machines view: state icons, the running count as a badge, and quick actions next to
each machine (start, connect, shut down).
- Overview (VM: Open Overview): a dashboard of every cluster, node and machine with CPU,
memory, uptime and IP addresses. Right-click a row for the same menu as in the tree.
- Status bar: the number of running machines; click it to open the Overview.
Work with machines
- Create a machine from a node's context menu: name, processors, memory, disk, installation ISO
and network, step by step.
- Settings opens an editor for the machine's configuration. Some settings can only change while
the machine is off.
- Start, Shut Down, Reboot, Stop (Power Off). Shut Down asks the guest to shut down cleanly;
Stop cuts the power. These run in the background: the machine shows a spinner and
"Shutting down…" until it is done, and you can keep working. If a shutdown hangs, Stop is still
available.
- Delete removes the machine, and its disks if you choose so.
Consoles
- Graphical console: the machine's screen in an editor tab, with keyboard and mouse. Hyper-V
machines use the same connection as Virtual Machine Connection; QEMU machines use VNC.
- Serial console: a terminal on the machine's serial port, for Linux servers and boot logs.
- The tab's toolbar has Send Ctrl+Alt+Del, Toggle Scaling, Type Clipboard Text,
Reconnect, the power actions and Open in New Window.
- Type Clipboard Text types the clipboard into the machine as key presses, for consoles without a
shared clipboard (installers, login prompts). It types with a US keyboard layout.
- Consoles connect through VS Code itself, so they also work over Remote SSH, WSL and Codespaces.
Your credentials
Passwords and tokens go to VS Code's Secret Storage (your operating system's keychain), never to
settings files. The Hyper-V console signs in with your Windows account, so it needs no password.
When a console does ask for a password, VM: Forget Console Sign-in removes the saved one.
Settings
| Setting |
Default |
|
vmm.refreshInterval |
5 |
Seconds between state refreshes while the view or the Overview is visible. |
vmm.console.openInNewWindow |
false |
Open consoles in a new window instead of an editor tab. |
vmm.console.scaleViewport |
true |
Scale graphical consoles to fit the tab. |
vmm.confirmPowerOff |
true |
Ask before a hard power off (Stop). |
Providers add their own settings, for example vmm.qemu.path.
Feedback
Found a bug or missing a hypervisor?
Open an issue. To build the
extension yourself or write a provider, see DEVELOPMENT.md.
| |
