pxinv 0.3.0

Proxmox VM & container inventory CLI

pxinv

A fast CLI for inventorying and managing VMs and containers on your Proxmox homelab.

$ pxinv list

 VMID  NAME             NODE    TYPE  STATUS   CPU    RAM              DISK             UPTIME  TAGS
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 100   homeassistant    pve-01  VM    running  5.2%   1.0GB/4.0GB      10.0GB/32.0GB    3d      homelab
 101   pihole           pve-01  CT    running  0.8%   128.0MB/512.0MB  1.0GB/8.0GB      14d     dns
 200   talos-cp-01      pve-02  VM    stopped  —      —/8.0GB          —/64.0GB         —       k8s

3 resource(s) — 2 running, 1 stopped

Installation

pip install pxinv

Or install from source:

git clone https://github.com/thetechiejourney/pxinv
cd pxinv
pip install -e .

Authentication

pxinv uses Proxmox API tokens (recommended over username/password).

Create a token in Proxmox:

1. Go to Datacenter → Permissions → API Tokens
2. Add a token for your user (e.g. root@pam, token name: pxinv)
3. Copy the token value — it's only shown once

Required permissions: VM.Audit and Sys.Audit on / (or per-node).

Configuration

Credentials can be provided in three ways (in order of precedence):

1. CLI flags

pxinv --host 192.168.1.10 --token-name pxinv --token-value <secret> list

2. Environment variables

export PXINV_HOST=192.168.1.10
export PXINV_TOKEN_NAME=pxinv
export PXINV_TOKEN_VALUE=<secret>
export PXINV_VERIFY_SSL=false   # optional, for self-signed certs

pxinv list

3. Config file

~/.config/pxinv/config.yaml:

host: 192.168.1.10
user: root@pam
token_name: pxinv
token_value: xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx
verify_ssl: false

Commands

pxinv list

List all VMs and containers.

# All guests
pxinv list

# Filter by node
pxinv list --node pve-01

# Only running containers
pxinv list --type ct --status running

# Filter by tag
pxinv list --tags k8s
pxinv list --tags homelab --status running

# JSON output (pipe to jq, etc.)
pxinv list --output json | jq '.[] | select(.cpu_usage > 50)'

# YAML output
pxinv list --output yaml

pxinv watch

Live-refresh the VM/container list directly in the terminal. No flickering — powered by rich.Live. Press Ctrl+C to exit.

# Refresh every 5 seconds (default)
pxinv watch

# Custom interval
pxinv watch --interval 10

# Combinable with all list filters
pxinv watch --status running
pxinv watch --tags k8s --interval 3
pxinv watch --node pve-01

The panel header shows the refresh interval and the timestamp of the last update.

pxinv summary

Show cluster-wide resource totals and node status.

pxinv summary
pxinv summary --output json

pxinv start <vmid>

Start a VM or container by VMID.

pxinv start 100

# Wait until the VM is fully running before returning
pxinv start 100 --wait

# Custom timeout (default: 60s)
pxinv start 100 --wait --timeout 120

pxinv stop <vmid>

Gracefully shut down a VM or container by VMID.

pxinv stop 100

# Wait until the VM is fully stopped before returning
pxinv stop 100 --wait

pxinv ansible-inventory

Export the inventory in Ansible dynamic inventory JSON format. Hosts are automatically grouped by status (running, stopped) and by Proxmox tag (tag_homelab, tag_k8s, etc.).

# Basic inventory (no IPs)
pxinv ansible-inventory

# Fetch IPs via QEMU guest agent (requires qemu-guest-agent installed in VMs)
pxinv ansible-inventory --with-ips

# Only include running guests
pxinv ansible-inventory --running-only

# Use directly with ansible
ansible -i <(pxinv ansible-inventory) all -m ping

# Target a specific group
ansible -i <(pxinv ansible-inventory) tag_homelab -m ping
ansible -i <(pxinv ansible-inventory) running -m setup

Example output:

{
  "all": {
    "hosts": ["homeassistant", "pihole"],
    "children": ["running", "stopped", "tag_homelab", "tag_dns"]
  },
  "running": { "hosts": ["homeassistant", "pihole"] },
  "stopped": { "hosts": [] },
  "tag_homelab": { "hosts": ["homeassistant"] },
  "tag_dns": { "hosts": ["pihole"] },
  "_meta": {
    "hostvars": {
      "homeassistant": {
        "ansible_host": "192.168.1.100",
        "proxmox_vmid": 100,
        "proxmox_node": "pve-01",
        "proxmox_type": "vm",
        "proxmox_status": "running",
        "proxmox_tags": ["homelab"]
      }
    }
  }
}

ansible_host is only populated when using --with-ips and the VM has qemu-guest-agent running.

Tags

Proxmox supports tagging VMs and containers via the UI (VM → Options → Tags). pxinv shows tags as a column in pxinv list and lets you filter by them:

pxinv list --tags homelab
pxinv list --tags k8s --status running

Tag matching is case-insensitive. Multiple tags per VM are supported — filtering matches any VM that contains the specified tag.

Self-signed certificates

If your Proxmox uses the default self-signed cert, disable verification:

pxinv --no-verify-ssl list
# or
export PXINV_VERIFY_SSL=false

Contributing

PRs welcome. To set up a dev environment:

git clone https://github.com/thetechiejourney/pxinv
cd pxinv
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest

License

MIT