1 Libguestfs is tools and a library for accessing and modifying guest
2 disk images. For more information see the home page:
6 For discussion, development, patches, etc. please use the mailing
9 http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/libguestfs
13 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
15 Running ./configure will check you have all the requirements installed
20 A useful tip is to run:
22 yum-builddep libguestfs
24 which will install all build dependencies automatically. If that is
25 successful, you don't need to bother with the rest of this section.
29 Take a look at the debian/control file and install everything listed
30 in "Build-Depends". If that is successful, you don't need to bother
31 with the rest of this section.
33 The full requirements are described below.
35 For basic functionality and the C tools:
37 - look at appliance/packagelist.in and install as many of the packages
38 that apply to your distro as possible
40 - recent QEMU >= 0.13 (0.14 or later is better) with virtio-serial support
42 - kernel >= 2.6.34 with virtio-serial support enabled.
44 - virtio-block and virtio-net drivers should be compiled into your
45 host kernel (strictly speaking this is optional, but you will have
46 to make complex changes to the ./configure command line to get it
47 to work if you don't have virtio)
49 - febootstrap >= 3.3 (it is best to use the latest version)
51 Notes: (1) febootstrap 2.x WILL NOT WORK
52 (2) febootstrap 3.x is distro-independent, and is required on
53 Debian and other distros as well as Fedora
55 - XDR, rpcgen (on Linux these are provided by glibc)
61 - pcre (Perl Compatible Regular Expressions C library)
63 - genisoimage (NOT mkisofs any more)
65 - hivex >= 1.2.7 (http://libguestfs.org/download) (optional)
67 - libmagic (the library that corresponds to the 'file' command) (optional)
73 - libconfig (optional)
75 - augeas >= 0.5.0 (http://augeas.net/) (optional)
77 - Berkeley DB 'db_dump' and 'db_load' utilities
78 (db4-utils or db4.X-util or similar) (optional)
80 - systemtap/DTrace userspace probes (optional)
81 http://sourceware.org/systemtap/wiki/AddingUserSpaceProbingToApps
83 - perldoc (pod2man, pod2text, pod2html) to generate the manual pages
84 and other documentation.
86 - Readline to have nicer command-line editing in guestfish (optional)
88 - xmllint (part of libxml2) to validate virt-inspector
89 RELAX NG schema (optional)
91 - OCaml if you want to rebuild the generated files, and
92 also to build the OCaml bindings (optional)
94 - po4a for translating manpages and POD files.
95 This is optional when compiling from the tarball, but mandatory
96 if you compile from git.
98 - getfacl, getfattr libraries and programs (optional)
100 To build FUSE support (guestmount):
102 - FUSE libraries and kernel module (optional)
104 To build language bindings:
106 - Perl if you want to build the perl bindings (optional)
108 - Python if you want to build the python bindings (optional)
110 - Ruby, rake if you want to build the ruby bindings (optional)
112 - Java, JNI, jpackage-utils if you want to build the java
115 - GHC if you want to build the Haskell bindings (optional)
117 - PHP, phpize if you want to build the PHP bindings (optional)
119 To build the Perl tools:
121 - Perl Sys::Virt module (optional)
123 - Perl Win::Hivex module (optional)
125 - Perl Pod::Usage module (optional)
127 - Perl Test::More module (from perl Test::Simple) (optional)
129 - Perl String::ShellQuote module (optional)
131 - perl-libintl for translating perl code (optional)
135 - virt-sysprep requires FUSE support since it uses guestmount
139 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
141 Then make the daemon, library and root filesystem:
146 Finally run the tests:
150 If everything works, you can install the library and tools by running
151 this command as root:
155 You can run guestfish, guestmount and the virt tools without needing
156 to install, using the "run" script in the top directory. This script
157 sets up some environment variables. For example:
159 ./run ./fish/guestfish [usual guestfish args ...]
161 ./run ./inspector/virt-inspector [usual virt-inspector args ...]
163 If you are already in the fish/ subdirectory, then the following
164 command will also work:
166 ../run ./guestfish [...]
168 You can also make a symlink (note: NOT a hard link) from your $PATH to
172 ln -s ~/libguestfs/run libguestfs-run
174 libguestfs-run ./inspector/virt-inspector [...]
176 You can also run the C programs under valgrind like this:
178 ./run valgrind [valgrind opts...] ./cat/virt-cat [virt-cat opts...]
180 This also works with sudo (eg. if you need root access for libvirt or
181 to access a block device):
183 sudo ./run ./cat/virt-cat -d LinuxGuest /etc/passwd
187 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
189 By far the most common problem is with broken or incompatible
192 Different versions of qemu have problems booting the appliance for
193 different reasons. This varies between versions of qemu, and Linux
194 distributions which add their own patches.
196 If you find a problem, you could try using your own qemu built from
197 source (qemu is very easy to build from source), with a 'qemu
198 wrapper'. Qemu wrappers are described in the guestfs(3) manpage.
202 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
204 By default the configure script will look for qemu-kvm (KVM support).
205 You will need a reasonably recent processor for this to work. KVM is
206 much faster than using plain Qemu.
208 You may also need to enable KVM support for non-root users, by following
211 http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/FAQ#How_can_I_use_kvm_with_a_non-privileged_user.3F
213 On some systems, this will work too:
217 On some systems, the chmod will not survive a reboot, and you will
218 need to make edits to the udev configuration.
222 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
224 On my machines I can usually rebuild the appliance in around 3
225 minutes. If it takes much longer for you, use a local distro mirror
228 To use squid to cache yum downloads, read this first:
229 https://lists.dulug.duke.edu/pipermail/yum/2006-August/009041.html
230 (In brief, because yum chooses random mirrors each time, squid doesn't
231 work very well with default yum configuration. To get around this,
232 choose a Fedora mirror which is close to you, set this with
233 './configure --with-mirror=[...]', and then proxy the whole lot
234 through squid by setting http_proxy environment variable).
236 You will also need to substantially increase the squid configuration
238 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Using_Mock_to_test_package_builds#Using_Squid_to_Speed_Up_Mock_package_downloads
241 Porting to other Linux distros / non-Linux
242 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
244 libguestfs itself should be fairly portable to other Linux
245 distributions. Non-Linux ports are trickier, but we will accept
246 patches if they aren't too invasive.
248 The main porting issues are with the dependencies needed to build the
249 appliance. You will need to port the febootstrap first
250 (http://people.redhat.com/~rjones/febootstrap/).
253 Copyright and license information
254 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
256 Copyright (C) 2009-2011 Red Hat Inc.
258 The library is distributed under the LGPLv2+. The programs are
259 distributed under the GPLv2+. Please see the files COPYING and
260 COPYING.LIB for full license information.