Command-Line Interface Utility

In Pro and Business Editions, you can control Parallels Desktop and virtual machines from the command-line interface. Our CLI utilities support the majority of the functions available via the graphical user interface.

Note: This section of the guide covers all supported types of virtual machines (Windows, Linux, and Mac), unless explicitly stated otherwise.

The command-line interface includes the following utilities:

• prlsrvctl — the utility is used to manage Parallels Desktop. The tasks include getting general information about Parallels Desktop, modifying Parallels Desktop preferences, getting a list of users, obtaining statistics, installing a license, and others.

• prlctl — the utility is used to manage virtual machines. The tasks include creating and configuring virtual machines, snapshot management, cloning operations, installing Parallels Tools, obtaining statistics, generating problem reports, and many others.

The command-line utilities are installed on a Mac as part of Parallels Desktop installation. You can run the utilities in Terminal.

Note that to get help about a particular command, you can type man <name_of_the_command> in Terminal. This will list the command attributes and additional help.