With the increase of virtualization, keeping track of whether a server is a physical server or a VMware guest can be difficult. There are a few ways to determine whether a server is a physical server or VMware guest, but one of them is using the dmidecode command.
dmidecode -s system-manufacturer
If it’s a virtual you will see this:
# dmidecode -s system-manufacturer
VMware, Inc.
if it’s a physical server, the output will look like this for an HP server:
# dmidecode -s system-manufacturer
HP
or
# dmidecode -s system-manufacturer
Dell Inc.
For a Dell server. If your OS doesn’t support dmidecode -s then you can just run this:
# dmidecode | grep VMware
