linux-ZyvZnF:~ # virsh list --all Id Name State ---------------------------------------------------- - redhat7;reboot shut off - oscar-vm-5 shut off As shown above, 1 we use command "virsh define a.xml" to define a guest with a name containing ';', that's 'redhat7;reboot' 2 then we start the guest: "virsh start redhat7;reboot" 3 shell consider the command as a) run "virsh start redhat7", failed b) run "reboot", to reboot the host And *the host get rebooted*. shall libvirtd do the guest-name-validation work? Or other suggustions? -- Oscar oscar.zhangbo(a)huawei.com