View OS inventory data

Supported operating systems

For the full list of operating systems and versions that supportOS inventory management, seeOperating system details.

Required roles and permissions

To get the permissions that you need to list and describe inventory data, ask your administrator to grant you the OS Inventory Viewer(roles/osconfig.inventoryViewer) IAM role on the project. For more information about granting roles, seeManage access to projects, folders, and organizations.

You might also be able to get the required permissions throughcustom roles or otherpredefined roles.

Set up your VM

Before you can use OS inventory management, you need to configure your VMsto use the feature. To configure your VMs to use OS inventory management,set up VM Manager.

After setting up VM Manager on your VMs, you can thenview OS inventory data and vulnerability reports.

View OS inventory data

View OS inventory data for a VM

You can use the Google Cloud console, gcloud CLI or OS Config APIto view OS information for a specific VM.

Console

To view OS vulnerabilities and information about installed packages on a VMby using the Google Cloud console, perform the following steps:

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to theVM instances page.

    Go to VM instances

  2. Click the name of the instance for which you want to view the OSinformation.TheInstance details page appears.
  3. Click theOS info tab.
    To view OS inventory data, you must enable VM Manager.If Google Cloud console prompts you to enable VM Manager,select one of the following options:
    • Enable for current project: enables VM Manager for allVMs in the selected project
    • Enable for this VM: enables VM Manager only for theselected VM
  4. Review the list of OS vulnerabilities and installed packages in theOS info tab.
  5. Optional: If updates are available for any of the installed packages,then select the package names and clickApply updates.
    ThePatch page appears. For more information aboutusing the Patch feature in VM Manager,seeCreate patch jobs.

gcloud

To view inventory details for a specific VM, run theos-config inventories describe command:

gcloud compute os-config inventories describeVM_NAME \    --location=ZONE \    --view=VIEW

Replace the following:

  • VM_NAME: the name for your VM
  • ZONE: the zone where the VM instance is located

  • VIEW: the type of output information that is required. The following view types are available:

    • basic: displays only OS information

    • full: displays information about both OS and packages

      If unspecified, the default isbasic.

    Example (basic view)

    gcloud compute os-config inventories describe vm1-centos \   --location=us-central1-c

    Example output

    architecture: x86_64hostname: vm1-centoskernelRelease: 3.10.0-1160.92.1.el7.x86_64kernelVersion: '#1 SMP Tue Jun 20 11:48:01 UTC 2023'longName: CentOS Linux 7 (Core)osconfigAgentVersion: 20230504.00-g1.el7shortName: centosupdateTime: '2023-07-26T17:03:50Z'version: '7'

    Example (full view)

    gcloud compute os-config inventories describe vm1-centos \   --location=us-central1-c \   --view=full

    Linux example output

    ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐│                               Installed Packages (Yum)                              │├─────────────────────────────────────┬──────────────┬────────────────────────────────┤│             PACKAGE_NAME            │ ARCHITECTURE │            VERSION             │├─────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────┼────────────────────────────────┤│ GeoIP                               │ x86_64       │ 1.5.0-13.el7                   ││ NetworkManager                      │ x86_64       │ 1:1.12.0-8.el7_6               ││ NetworkManager-libnm                │ x86_64       │ 1:1.12.0-8.el7_6               ││ NetworkManager-team                 │ x86_64       │ 1:1.12.0-8.el7_6               ││ NetworkManager-tui                  │ x86_64       │ 1:1.12.0-8.el7_6               ││ acl                                 │ x86_64       │ 2.2.51-14.el7                  ││ yum-cron                            │ all          │ 3.4.3-161.el7.centos           ││ yum-metadata-parser                 │ x86_64       │ 1.1.4-10.el7                   ││ yum-plugin-fastestmirror            │ all          │ 1.1.31-50.el7                  ││ zlib                                │ x86_64       │ 1.2.7-18.el7                   │└─────────────────────────────────────┴──────────────┴────────────────────────────────┘┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐│                        Package Updates Available (Yum)                        │├───────────────────────────────┬──────────────┬────────────────────────────────┤│          PACKAGE_NAME         │ ARCHITECTURE │            VERSION             │├───────────────────────────────┼──────────────┼────────────────────────────────┤│ GeoIP                         │ x86_64       │ 1.5.0-14.el7                   ││ NetworkManager                │ x86_64       │ 1:1.18.8-2.el7_9               ││ NetworkManager-libnm          │ x86_64       │ 1:1.18.8-2.el7_9               ││ NetworkManager-team           │ x86_64       │ 1:1.18.8-2.el7_9               ││ yum-cron                      │ all          │ 3.4.3-168.el7.centos           ││ yum-plugin-fastestmirror      │ all          │ 1.1.31-54.el7_8                ││ zlib                          │ x86_64       │ 1.2.7-19.el7_9                 │└───────────────────────────────┴──────────────┴────────────────────────────────┘architecture: x86_64hostname: vm1-centoskernelRelease: 3.10.0-957.1.3.el7.x86_64kernelVersion: '#1 SMP Thu Nov 29 14:49:43 UTC 2018'longName: CentOS Linux 7 (Core)osconfigAgentVersion: 20230504.00-g1.el7shortName: centosupdateTime: '2021-05-11T22:21:52.323Z'version: '7'

    Windows example output

    ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐│                Installed Packages (GooGet)                │├───────────────────────┬──────────────┬────────────────────┤│      PACKAGE_NAME     │ ARCHITECTURE │      VERSION       │├───────────────────────┼──────────────┼────────────────────┤│ google-osconfig-agent │ x86_64       │ 20210415.4.0+win@1 │└───────────────────────┴──────────────┴────────────────────┘┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────┐│     Installed Packages (Windows Update Agent)     │├───────┬────────────┬────────────────┬─────────────┤│ TITLE │ CATEGORIES │ KB_ARTICLE_IDS │ SUPPORT_URL │├───────┼────────────┼────────────────┼─────────────┤│ title │ C1, C2     │ 4589208        │ url.com     │└───────┴────────────┴────────────────┴─────────────┘┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐│           Installed Packages (Quick Fix Engineering)          │├─────────┬─────────────────┬────────────┬──────────────────────┤│ CAPTION │   DESCRIPTION   │ HOT_FIX_ID │     INSTALL_TIME     │├─────────┼─────────────────┼────────────┼──────────────────────┤│ caption │ Security Update │ KB4470788  │ 2019-03-12T00:00:00Z │└─────────┴─────────────────┴────────────┴──────────────────────┘┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐│                  Installed Packages (Windows Application)                 │├──────────────────┬─────────────────┬───────────────────────┬──────────────┤│   DISPLAY_NAME   │ DISPLAY_VERSION │       PUBLISHER       │ INSTALL_DATE │├──────────────────┼─────────────────┼───────────────────────┼──────────────┤│ PowerShell 7-x64 │ 7.0.2.0         │ Microsoft Corporation │ 2021-06-08   │└──────────────────┴─────────────────┴───────────────────────┴──────────────┘┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐│             Package Updates Available (GooGet)            │├───────────────────────┬──────────────┬────────────────────┤│      PACKAGE_NAME     │ ARCHITECTURE │      VERSION       │├───────────────────────┼──────────────┼────────────────────┤│ google-osconfig-agent │ x86_64       │ 20210415.4.0+win@1 │└───────────────────────┴──────────────┴────────────────────┘┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────┐│  Package Updates Available (Windows Update Agent) │├───────┬────────────┬────────────────┬─────────────┤│ TITLE │ CATEGORIES │ KB_ARTICLE_IDS │ SUPPORT_URL │├───────┼────────────┼────────────────┼─────────────┤│ title │ C1, C2     │ 4589208        │ url.com     │└───────┴────────────┴────────────────┴─────────────┘┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐│       Package Updates Available (Quick Fix Engineering)       │├─────────┬─────────────────┬────────────┬──────────────────────┤│ CAPTION │   DESCRIPTION   │ HOT_FIX_ID │     INSTALL_TIME     │├─────────┼─────────────────┼────────────┼──────────────────────┤│ caption │ Security Update │ KB4470788  │ 2019-03-12T00:00:00Z │└─────────┴─────────────────┴────────────┴──────────────────────┘architecture: x86_64hostname: vm3-windowskernelRelease: 10.0.17763.1817kernelVersion: 10.0.17763.1817 (WinBuild.160101.0800)longName: Microsoft Windows Server 2019 DatacenterosconfigAgentVersion: 20210901.00.0+win@1shortName: windowsupdateTime: '2021-09-12T22:14:35Z'version: 10.0.17763

REST

To view inventory details for a specific VM, create aGET request to theprojects.locations.instances.inventories.get method.

   GET https://osconfig.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/ZONE/instances/INSTANCE/inventory

Replace the following:

  • PROJECT_ID: your project ID
  • ZONE: the zone where the VM instance is located
  • INSTANCE: specify either the instance ID or the name for your VM

View OS inventory data for VMs in a specific zone

You can use gcloud CLI or OS Config API to view the OS informationfor VMs in a specific zone.

gcloud

To view a list of inventory data for VMs in a specific zone, run theos-config inventories list command.

gcloud compute os-config inventories list \    --location=ZONE \    --view=VIEW

Replace the following:

  • ZONE: the zone where the VM is located

  • VIEW: the type of output information that is required. The following view types are available:

    • basic: displays only OS information

    • full: displays information about both OS and packages

      If unspecified, the default isbasic.

    Example (basic view)

    gcloud compute os-config inventories list \   --location=us-central1-c

    The output is similar to the following:

    INSTANCE_ID          INSTANCE_NAME     OS                                         OSCONFIG_AGENT_VERSION       UPDATE_TIME29255009728795105    vm1-centos        CentOS Linux 7 (Core)                      20230504.00-g1.el7           2023-07-26T16:53:49Z5138980234596718741  vm2-rhel8         Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.8 (Ootpa)       20230504.00-g1.el8           2023-07-26T16:55:33Z7127836223366142250  vm3-windows       Microsoft Windows Server 2022 Datacenter   20230403.00.0+win@1          2023-07-26T16:49:16Z

    Example (full view)

    gcloud compute os-config inventories list \   --location=us-central1-c \   --view=full

    The output is similar to the following:

    INSTANCE_ID          INSTANCE_NAME     OS                                       INSTALLED_PACKAGES   AVAILABLE_PACKAGES  OSCONFIG_AGENT_VERSION       UPDATE_TIME29255009728795105    vm1-centos        CentOS Linux 7 (Core)                    334                    2                 20230504.00-g1.el7           2023-07-26T16:53:49Z5932621394110773366  vm2-rhel8         Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.8 (Ootpa)     410                  138                 20230504.00-g1.el8           2023-07-26T16:55:33Z7127836223366142250  vm3-windows       Microsoft Windows Server 2022 Datacenter  36                    6                 20230403.00.0+win@1          2023-07-26T16:49:16Z

REST

To view a list of inventory data for VMs in a specific zone, create aGET request to theprojects.locations.instances.inventories.list method.

   GET https://osconfig.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/ZONE/instances/–/inventories

Replace the following:

  • PROJECT_ID: your project ID
  • ZONE: the zone where the VMs are located

View OS inventory data from Cloud Asset Inventory

OS inventory management stores and forwards inventory and vulnerability report data toCloud Asset Inventory. Cloud Asset Inventory is ametadata inventory service that allows you to view, monitor, and analyze assetsacross Google Cloud.From Cloud Asset Inventory, you can poll the information and view changes in the data.

To access OS inventory and vulnerability report data from Cloud Asset Inventory, you need tocomplete the following setup:

For more information, seeViewing VM Manager data.

OS inventory management (earlier version)

If you are still using the earlier version of OS inventory management, expandthe following section to review the instructions for theGoogle Cloud CLI.

OS inventory management (earlier version)

List VMs

To view the list of VMs that have OS inventory management set up, run theinstances os-inventory list-instances command.

For example, to list all the VMs that have inventory data, run the following command:

gcloud compute instances os-inventory list-instances

The output is similar to the following:

  NAME                 ZONE          MACHINE_TYPE   PREEMPTIBLE  INTERNAL_IP  EXTERNAL_IP STATUS  inventory-instance   us-east1-b    e2-standard-2               192.0.2.1    RUNNING  instance-inventory1  us-west1-b    e2-standard-2               192.0.2.2    RUNNING  instance-inventory2  asia-east2-b  e2-standard-2               192.0.2.3    RUNNING

You can also use filters to narrow down your results. For example, you can list all VMs that have OS inventory management set up and whose hostname matches the regular expressioninstance-* by running the following command:

gcloud compute instances os-inventory list-instances      --inventory-filter="Hostname~instance-*"

The output is similar to the following:

  NAME                 ZONE         MACHINE_TYPE   PREEMPTIBLE  INTERNAL_IP  EXTERNAL_IP STATUS  inventory-instance   us-east1-b   e2-standard-2               192.0.2.1    RUNNING  instance-inventory1  us-west1-b   e2-standard-2               192.0.2.2    RUNNING  instance-inventory2  asia-east2-b e2-standard-2               192.0.2.3    RUNNING
View inventory data

To view the inventory data for your VM, use theinstances os-inventory describe command.

To view the inventory data collected for a VM, run the following command:

gcloud compute instances os-inventory describeVM_NAME \      --zone=ZONE

Replace the following:

  • VM_NAME: the name of your VM
  • ZONE: the zone where the VM is located

To view the types of output details that are returned, reviewInformation provided by OS inventory management.

What's next

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Last updated 2026-02-19 UTC.