vmanager

Proxmox VE guest management TUI: the views and bulk ops the web UI never gave you.

PVE stores autostart and startup order in each guest’s conf (onboot, startup: order=…,up=…,down=…), but there is no single screen that shows every VM and CT sorted by boot order with delays, ties, dependencies, and resource load. This tool fills that gap.

Features

Pain point	What vmanager does
No unified autostart/order view	One table: VM and CT, sorted by order
Startup delays buried	Edit up / down delays inline
No boot dependencies	Depends on: stored in guest description
Multi-click bulk onboot	Mark rows + bulk enable/disable
Messy order numbers	Renumber / topo-fix from deps
Order collisions invisible	Plan view + ! issue markers
“What boots and how heavy?”	Autostart RAM / vCPU vs host
Scary edits	Staged edits + apply diff + --dry-run

Changes are staged in memory, then applied via official tools:

qm set <vmid> --onboot 1 --startup order=50,up=30
pct set <vmid> --description '...'

Dependencies (description footer)

vmanager encodes boot deps in each guest’s description, leaving your notes alone:

Whatever notes you already had…

# --- vmanager managed below; do not edit ---
Depends on: 1053 1002

Key	Action
y	Edit dependency VMIDs
Y	Clear deps
m	Depend on marked guests (or prompt for one id)
M	Who depends on me?
F	Topological renumber so deps boot first
4	Filter rows with dep/order issues

Violations (missing guest, dep not onboot, order not before dependent, cycles) show as ! and in the PLAN view.

TUI highlights

LIST view

Full guest table with aligned columns, dirty ~, marked *, issue !.

PLAN view (Tab / P)

Interactive boot timeline with cumulative T+ delays.

Key	Action
J / K	Move guest earlier / later (rewrites onboot orders to 10,20,30…)
y	Edit deps
F	Fix order from dependency graph
w	Apply preview

Apply safety

w / Enter opens a diff panel. Live mode requires y to confirm. --dry-run never writes.

Other keys

Key	Action
Space	Toggle onboot
o + -	Order
u d	Up / down delay
r	Renumber onboot → 10,20,30…
f s /	Filter, sort, search
i	Detail (notes, deps, issues)
D	Discard pending
?	Full help

Install / run

No dependencies beyond Python 3.10+ (stdlib curses):

./bin/vmanager
# or
python3 -m vmanager

./bin/vmanager --dry-run     # never write
./bin/vmanager --list
./bin/vmanager --boot-plan

Optional PATH install:

ln -s "$(pwd)/bin/vmanager" /usr/local/bin/vmanager

CLI

vmanager --list                 # full table (includes DEPS)
vmanager --list --onboot-only
vmanager --boot-plan            # plan + host RAM% + dep issues
vmanager --list --json
vmanager -n --renumber          # dry-run renumber
vmanager -n --set-onboot 1024 1
vmanager -n --set-startup 1002 'order=150,up=30'

Layout

vmanager/
  bin/vmanager
  vmanager/
    cli.py  backend.py  models.py  deps.py  table.py  tui.py
  tests/
  README.md  LICENSE

Safety

• Prefer --dry-run first on production.
• Apply uses qm set / pct set only.
• Does not start/stop/migrate guests; config only.
• Description writes only touch the managed footer block (plus your notes if you edit them via deps clear/set).

License

MIT