5 guestfish - the libguestfs Filesystem Interactive SHell
9 guestfish [--options] [commands]
13 guestfish [--ro|--rw] -a disk.img
15 guestfish [--ro|--rw] -a disk.img -m dev[:mountpoint]
17 guestfish -d libvirt-domain
19 guestfish [--ro|--rw] -a disk.img -i
21 guestfish -d libvirt-domain -i
25 Using guestfish in read/write mode on live virtual machines can be
26 dangerous, potentially causing disk corruption. Use the I<--ro>
27 (read-only) option to use guestfish safely if the disk image or
28 virtual machine might be live.
32 Guestfish is a shell and command-line tool for examining and modifying
33 virtual machine filesystems. It uses libguestfs and exposes all of
34 the functionality of the guestfs API, see L<guestfs(3)>.
36 Guestfish gives you structured access to the libguestfs API, from
37 shell scripts or the command line or interactively. If you want to
38 rescue a broken virtual machine image, you should look at the
39 L<virt-rescue(1)> command.
43 =head2 As an interactive shell
47 Welcome to guestfish, the libguestfs filesystem interactive shell for
48 editing virtual machine filesystems.
50 Type: 'help' for a list of commands
51 'man' to read the manual
52 'quit' to quit the shell
56 ><fs> list-filesystems
58 /dev/vg_guest/lv_root: ext4
59 /dev/vg_guest/lv_swap: swap
60 ><fs> mount /dev/vg_guest/lv_root /
67 =head2 From shell scripts
69 Create a new C</etc/motd> file in a guest or disk image:
74 mount /dev/vg_guest/lv_root /
75 write /etc/motd "Welcome, new users"
78 List the LVM logical volumes in a disk image:
80 guestfish -a disk.img --ro <<_EOF_
85 List all the filesystems in a disk image:
87 guestfish -a disk.img --ro <<_EOF_
92 =head2 On one command line
94 Update C</etc/resolv.conf> in a guest:
97 add disk.img : run : mount /dev/vg_guest/lv_root / : \
98 write /etc/resolv.conf "nameserver 1.2.3.4"
100 Edit C</boot/grub/grub.conf> interactively:
102 guestfish --rw --add disk.img \
103 --mount /dev/vg_guest/lv_root \
104 --mount /dev/sda1:/boot \
105 edit /boot/grub/grub.conf
107 =head2 Mount disks automatically
109 Use the I<-i> option to automatically mount the
110 disks from a virtual machine:
112 guestfish --ro -a disk.img -i cat /etc/group
114 guestfish --ro -d libvirt-domain -i cat /etc/group
116 Another way to edit C</boot/grub/grub.conf> interactively is:
118 guestfish --rw -a disk.img -i edit /boot/grub/grub.conf
120 =head2 As a script interpreter
122 Create a 100MB disk containing an ext2-formatted partition:
124 #!/usr/bin/guestfish -f
125 sparse test1.img 100M
127 part-disk /dev/sda mbr
130 =head2 Start with a prepared disk
132 An alternate way to create a 100MB disk called C<test1.img> containing
133 a single ext2-formatted partition:
137 To list what is available do:
139 guestfish -N help | less
141 =head2 Remote control
143 eval "`guestfish --listen`"
144 guestfish --remote add-ro disk.img
145 guestfish --remote run
146 guestfish --remote lvs
154 Displays general help on options.
160 Lists all available guestfish commands.
164 =item B<--cmd-help cmd>
166 Displays detailed help on a single command C<cmd>.
172 Add a block device or virtual machine image to the shell.
174 The format of the disk image is auto-detected. To override this and
175 force a particular format use the I<--format=..> option.
177 Using this flag is mostly equivalent to using the C<add> command,
178 with C<readonly:true> if the I<--ro> flag was given, and
179 with C<format:...> if the I<--format:...> flag was given.
183 =item B<--connect URI>
185 When used in conjunction with the I<-d> option, this specifies
186 the libvirt URI to use. The default is to use the default libvirt
191 If using the I<--listen> option and a csh-like shell, use this option.
192 See section L</REMOTE CONTROL AND CSH> below.
194 =item B<-d libvirt-domain>
196 =item B<--domain libvirt-domain>
198 Add disks from the named libvirt domain. If the I<--ro> option is
199 also used, then any libvirt domain can be used. However in write
200 mode, only libvirt domains which are shut down can be named here.
202 Using this flag is mostly equivalent to using the C<add-domain> command,
203 with C<readonly:true> if the I<--ro> flag was given, and
204 with C<format:...> if the I<--format:...> flag was given.
208 =item B<--no-dest-paths>
210 Don't tab-complete paths on the guest filesystem. It is useful to be
211 able to hit the tab key to complete paths on the guest filesystem, but
212 this causes extra "hidden" guestfs calls to be made, so this option is
213 here to allow this feature to be disabled.
217 When prompting for keys and passphrases, guestfish normally turns
218 echoing off so you cannot see what you are typing. If you are not
219 worried about Tempest attacks and there is no one else in the room
220 you can specify this flag to see what you are typing.
226 Read commands from C<file>. To write pure guestfish
229 #!/usr/bin/guestfish -f
231 =item B<--format=raw|qcow2|..>
235 The default for the I<-a> option is to auto-detect the format of the
236 disk image. Using this forces the disk format for I<-a> options which
237 follow on the command line. Using I<--format> with no argument
238 switches back to auto-detection for subsequent I<-a> options.
242 guestfish --format=raw -a disk.img
244 forces raw format (no auto-detection) for C<disk.img>.
246 guestfish --format=raw -a disk.img --format -a another.img
248 forces raw format (no auto-detection) for C<disk.img> and reverts to
249 auto-detection for C<another.img>.
251 If you have untrusted raw-format guest disk images, you should use
252 this option to specify the disk format. This avoids a possible
253 security problem with malicious guests (CVE-2010-3851). See also
260 Using L<virt-inspector(1)> code, inspect the disks looking for
261 an operating system and mount filesystems as they would be
262 mounted on the real virtual machine.
264 Typical usage is either:
266 guestfish -d myguest -i
268 (for an inactive libvirt domain called I<myguest>), or:
270 guestfish --ro -d myguest -i
272 (for active domains, readonly), or specify the block device directly:
274 guestfish --rw -a /dev/Guests/MyGuest -i
276 Note that the command line syntax changed slightly over older
277 versions of guestfish. You can still use the old syntax:
279 guestfish [--ro] -i disk.img
281 guestfish [--ro] -i libvirt-domain
283 Using this flag is mostly equivalent to using the C<inspect-os>
284 command and then using other commands to mount the filesystems that
287 =item B<--keys-from-stdin>
289 Read key or passphrase parameters from stdin. The default is
290 to try to read passphrases from the user by opening C</dev/tty>.
294 Fork into the background and listen for remote commands. See section
295 L</REMOTE CONTROL GUESTFISH OVER A SOCKET> below.
297 =item B<-m dev[:mountpoint]>
299 =item B<--mount dev[:mountpoint]>
301 Mount the named partition or logical volume on the given mountpoint.
303 If the mountpoint is omitted, it defaults to C</>.
305 You have to mount something on C</> before most commands will work.
307 If any I<-m> or I<--mount> options are given, the guest is
308 automatically launched.
310 If you don't know what filesystems a disk image contains, you can
311 either run guestfish without this option, then list the partitions,
312 filesystems and LVs available (see L</list-partitions>,
313 L</list-filesystems> and L</lvs> commands), or you can use the
314 L<virt-filesystems(1)> program.
316 Using this flag is mostly equivalent to using the C<mount-options>
317 command or the C<mount-ro> command if the I<--ro> flag was given.
323 Disable autosync. This is enabled by default. See the discussion
324 of autosync in the L<guestfs(3)> manpage.
332 Prepare a fresh disk image formatted as "type". This is an
333 alternative to the I<-a> option: whereas I<-a> adds an existing disk,
334 I<-N> creates a preformatted disk with a filesystem and adds it.
335 See L</PREPARED DISK IMAGES> below.
337 =item B<--progress-bars>
339 Enable progress bars, even when guestfish is used non-interactively.
341 Progress bars are enabled by default when guestfish is used as an
344 =item B<--no-progress-bars>
346 Disable progress bars.
348 =item B<--remote[=pid]>
350 Send remote commands to C<$GUESTFISH_PID> or C<pid>. See section
351 L</REMOTE CONTROL GUESTFISH OVER A SOCKET> below.
357 This changes the I<-a>, I<-d> and I<-m> options so that disks are
358 added and mounts are done read-only.
360 The option must always be used if the disk image or virtual machine
361 might be running, and is generally recommended in cases where you
362 don't need write access to the disk.
364 Note that prepared disk images created with I<-N> are not affected by
365 this option. Also commands like C<add> are not affected - you have to
366 specify the C<readonly:true> option explicitly if you need it.
368 See also L</OPENING DISKS FOR READ AND WRITE> below.
372 Enable SELinux support for the guest. See L<guestfs(3)/SELINUX>.
378 Enable very verbose messages. This is particularly useful if you find
385 Display the guestfish / libguestfs version number and exit.
391 This option does nothing at the moment.
392 See L</OPENING DISKS FOR READ AND WRITE> below.
396 Echo each command before executing it.
400 =head1 COMMANDS ON COMMAND LINE
402 Any additional (non-option) arguments are treated as commands to
405 Commands to execute should be separated by a colon (C<:>), where the
406 colon is a separate parameter. Thus:
408 guestfish cmd [args...] : cmd [args...] : cmd [args...] ...
410 If there are no additional arguments, then we enter a shell, either an
411 interactive shell with a prompt (if the input is a terminal) or a
412 non-interactive shell.
414 In either command line mode or non-interactive shell, the first
415 command that gives an error causes the whole shell to exit. In
416 interactive mode (with a prompt) if a command fails, you can continue
419 =head1 USING launch (OR run)
421 As with L<guestfs(3)>, you must first configure your guest by adding
422 disks, then launch it, then mount any disks you need, and finally
423 issue actions/commands. So the general order of the day is:
445 C<run> is a synonym for C<launch>. You must C<launch> (or C<run>)
446 your guest before mounting or performing any other commands.
448 The only exception is that if any of the I<-i>, I<-m>, I<--mount>,
449 I<-N> or I<--new> options were given then C<run> is done
450 automatically, simply because guestfish can't perform the action you
451 asked for without doing this.
453 =head1 OPENING DISKS FOR READ AND WRITE
455 The guestfish (and L<guestmount(1)>) options I<--ro> and I<--rw>
456 affect whether the other command line options I<-a>, I<-c>, I<-d>,
457 I<-i> and I<-m> open disk images read-only or for writing.
459 In libguestfs E<lt> 1.6.2, guestfish and guestmount defaulted to
460 opening disk images supplied on the command line for write. To open a
461 disk image read-only you have to do I<-a image --ro>.
463 This matters: If you accidentally open a live VM disk image writable
464 then you will cause irreversible disk corruption.
466 By libguestfs 1.10 we intend to change the default the other way. Disk
467 images will be opened read-only. You will have to either specify
468 I<guestfish --rw> or change a configuration file in order to get write
469 access for disk images specified by those other command line options.
471 This version of guestfish has a I<--rw> option which does nothing (it
472 is already the default). However it is highly recommended that you
473 use this option to indicate that guestfish needs write access, and to
474 prepare your scripts for the day when this option will be required for
477 B<Note:> This does I<not> affect commands like L</add> and L</mount>,
478 or any other libguestfs program apart from guestfish and guestmount.
482 You can quote ordinary parameters using either single or double
485 add "file with a space.img"
491 A few commands require a list of strings to be passed. For these, use
492 a whitespace-separated list, enclosed in quotes. Strings containing whitespace
493 to be passed through must be enclosed in single quotes. A literal single quote
494 must be escaped with a backslash.
496 vgcreate VG "/dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1"
497 command "/bin/echo 'foo bar'"
498 command "/bin/echo \'foo\'"
500 =head1 OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS
502 Some commands take optional arguments. These arguments appear in this
503 documentation as C<[argname:..]>. You can use them as in these
506 add-drive-opts filename
508 add-drive-opts filename readonly:true
510 add-drive-opts filename format:qcow2 readonly:false
512 Each optional argument can appear at most once. All optional
513 arguments must appear after the required ones.
517 This section applies to all commands which can take integers
522 When the command takes a parameter measured in bytes, you can use one
523 of the following suffixes to specify kilobytes, megabytes and larger
528 =item B<k> or B<K> or B<KiB>
530 The size in kilobytes (multiplied by 1024).
534 The size in SI 1000 byte units.
538 The size in megabytes (multiplied by 1048576).
542 The size in SI 1000000 byte units.
546 The size in gigabytes (multiplied by 2**30).
550 The size in SI 10**9 byte units.
554 The size in terabytes (multiplied by 2**40).
558 The size in SI 10**12 byte units.
562 The size in petabytes (multiplied by 2**50).
566 The size in SI 10**15 byte units.
570 The size in exabytes (multiplied by 2**60).
574 The size in SI 10**18 byte units.
578 The size in zettabytes (multiplied by 2**70).
582 The size in SI 10**21 byte units.
586 The size in yottabytes (multiplied by 2**80).
590 The size in SI 10**24 byte units.
596 truncate-size /file 1G
598 would truncate the file to 1 gigabyte.
600 Be careful because a few commands take sizes in kilobytes or megabytes
601 (eg. the parameter to L</memsize> is specified in megabytes already).
602 Adding a suffix will probably not do what you expect.
604 =head2 OCTAL AND HEXADECIMAL NUMBERS
606 For specifying the radix (base) use the C convention: C<0> to prefix
607 an octal number or C<0x> to prefix a hexadecimal number. For example:
609 1234 decimal number 1234
610 02322 octal number, equivalent to decimal 1234
611 0x4d2 hexadecimal number, equivalent to decimal 1234
613 When using the C<chmod> command, you almost always want to specify an
614 octal number for the mode, and you must prefix it with C<0> (unlike
615 the Unix L<chmod(1)> program):
617 chmod 0777 /public # OK
618 chmod 777 /public # WRONG! This is mode 777 decimal = 01411 octal.
620 Commands that return numbers usually print them in decimal, but
621 some commands print numbers in other radices (eg. C<umask> prints
622 the mode in octal, preceeded by C<0>).
624 =head1 WILDCARDS AND GLOBBING
626 Neither guestfish nor the underlying guestfs API performs
627 wildcard expansion (globbing) by default. So for example the
628 following will not do what you expect:
632 Assuming you don't have a directory called literally C</home/*>
633 then the above command will return an error.
635 To perform wildcard expansion, use the C<glob> command.
639 runs C<rm-rf> on each path that matches (ie. potentially running
640 the command many times), equivalent to:
646 C<glob> only works on simple guest paths and not on device names.
648 If you have several parameters, each containing a wildcard, then glob
649 will perform a Cartesian product.
653 Any line which starts with a I<#> character is treated as a comment
654 and ignored. The I<#> can optionally be preceeded by whitespace,
655 but B<not> by a command. For example:
661 Blank lines are also ignored.
663 =head1 RUNNING COMMANDS LOCALLY
665 Any line which starts with a I<!> character is treated as a command
666 sent to the local shell (C</bin/sh> or whatever L<system(3)> uses).
670 tgz-out /remote local/remote-data.tar.gz
672 will create a directory C<local> on the host, and then export
673 the contents of C</remote> on the mounted filesystem to
674 C<local/remote-data.tar.gz>. (See C<tgz-out>).
676 To change the local directory, use the C<lcd> command. C<!cd> will
677 have no effect, due to the way that subprocesses work in Unix.
679 =head2 LOCAL COMMANDS WITH INLINE EXECUTION
681 If a line starts with I<E<lt>!> then the shell command is executed (as
682 for I<!>), but subsequently any output (stdout) of the shell command
683 is parsed and executed as guestfish commands.
685 Thus you can use shell script to construct arbitrary guestfish
686 commands which are then parsed by guestfish.
688 For example it is tedious to create a sequence of files
689 (eg. C</foo.1> through C</foo.100>) using guestfish commands
690 alone. However this is simple if we use a shell script to
691 create the guestfish commands for us:
693 <! for n in `seq 1 100`; do echo write /foo.$n $n; done
695 or with names like C</foo.001>:
697 <! for n in `seq 1 100`; do printf "write /foo.%03d %d\n" $n $n; done
699 When using guestfish interactively it can be helpful to just run the
700 shell script first (ie. remove the initial C<E<lt>> character so it is
701 just an ordinary I<!> local command), see what guestfish commands it
702 would run, and when you are happy with those prepend the C<E<lt>>
703 character to run the guestfish commands for real.
707 Use C<command E<lt>spaceE<gt> | command> to pipe the output of the
708 first command (a guestfish command) to the second command (any host
709 command). For example:
711 cat /etc/passwd | awk -F: '$3 == 0 { print }'
713 (where C<cat> is the guestfish cat command, but C<awk> is the host awk
714 program). The above command would list all accounts in the guest
715 filesystem which have UID 0, ie. root accounts including backdoors.
718 hexdump /bin/ls | head
719 list-devices | tail -1
720 tgz-out / - | tar ztf -
722 The space before the pipe symbol is required, any space after the pipe
723 symbol is optional. Everything after the pipe symbol is just passed
724 straight to the host shell, so it can contain redirections, globs and
725 anything else that makes sense on the host side.
727 To use a literal argument which begins with a pipe symbol, you have
732 =head1 HOME DIRECTORIES
734 If a parameter starts with the character C<~> then the tilde may be
735 expanded as a home directory path (either C<~> for the current user's
736 home directory, or C<~user> for another user).
738 Note that home directory expansion happens for users known I<on the
739 host>, not in the guest filesystem.
741 To use a literal argument which begins with a tilde, you have to quote
746 =head1 ENCRYPTED DISKS
748 Libguestfs has some support for Linux guests encrypted according to
749 the Linux Unified Key Setup (LUKS) standard, which includes nearly all
750 whole disk encryption systems used by modern Linux guests. Currently
751 only LVM-on-LUKS is supported.
753 Identify encrypted block devices and partitions using L</vfs-type>:
755 ><fs> vfs-type /dev/sda2
758 Then open those devices using L</luks-open>. This creates a
759 device-mapper device called C</dev/mapper/luksdev>.
761 ><fs> luks-open /dev/sda2 luksdev
762 Enter key or passphrase ("key"): <enter the passphrase>
764 Finally you have to tell LVM to scan for volume groups on
765 the newly created mapper device:
770 The logical volume(s) can now be mounted in the usual way.
772 Before closing a LUKS device you must unmount any logical volumes on
773 it and deactivate the volume groups by calling C<vg-activate false VG>
774 on each one. Then you can close the mapper device:
776 vg-activate false /dev/VG
777 luks-close /dev/mapper/luksdev
781 If a path is prefixed with C<win:> then you can use Windows-style
782 paths (with some limitations). The following commands are equivalent:
784 file /WINDOWS/system32/config/system.LOG
786 file win:/windows/system32/config/system.log
788 file win:\windows\system32\config\system.log
790 file WIN:C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\conFIG\SYSTEM.LOG
792 This syntax implicitly calls C<case-sensitive-path> (q.v.) so it also
793 handles case insensitivity like Windows would. This only works in
794 argument positions that expect a path.
796 =head1 UPLOADING AND DOWNLOADING FILES
798 For commands such as C<upload>, C<download>, C<tar-in>, C<tar-out> and
799 others which upload from or download to a local file, you can use the
800 special filename C<-> to mean "from stdin" or "to stdout". For example:
804 reads stdin and creates from that a file C</foo> in the disk image,
807 tar-out /etc - | tar tf -
809 writes the tarball to stdout and then pipes that into the external
810 "tar" command (see L</PIPES>).
812 When using C<-> to read from stdin, the input is read up to the end of
813 stdin. You can also use a special "heredoc"-like syntax to read up to
814 some arbitrary end marker:
822 Any string of characters can be used instead of C<END>. The end
823 marker must appear on a line of its own, without any preceeding or
824 following characters (not even spaces).
826 Note that the C<-E<lt>E<lt>> syntax only applies to parameters used to
827 upload local files (so-called "FileIn" parameters in the generator).
829 =head1 EXIT ON ERROR BEHAVIOUR
831 By default, guestfish will ignore any errors when in interactive mode
832 (ie. taking commands from a human over a tty), and will exit on the
833 first error in non-interactive mode (scripts, commands given on the
836 If you prefix a command with a I<-> character, then that command will
837 not cause guestfish to exit, even if that (one) command returns an
840 =head1 REMOTE CONTROL GUESTFISH OVER A SOCKET
842 Guestfish can be remote-controlled over a socket. This is useful
843 particularly in shell scripts where you want to make several different
844 changes to a filesystem, but you don't want the overhead of starting
845 up a guestfish process each time.
847 Start a guestfish server process using:
849 eval "`guestfish --listen`"
851 and then send it commands by doing:
853 guestfish --remote cmd [...]
855 To cause the server to exit, send it the exit command:
857 guestfish --remote exit
859 Note that the server will normally exit if there is an error in a
860 command. You can change this in the usual way. See section
861 L</EXIT ON ERROR BEHAVIOUR>.
863 =head2 CONTROLLING MULTIPLE GUESTFISH PROCESSES
865 The C<eval> statement sets the environment variable C<$GUESTFISH_PID>,
866 which is how the I<--remote> option knows where to send the commands.
867 You can have several guestfish listener processes running using:
869 eval "`guestfish --listen`"
871 eval "`guestfish --listen`"
874 guestfish --remote=$pid1 cmd
875 guestfish --remote=$pid2 cmd
877 =head2 REMOTE CONTROL AND CSH
879 When using csh-like shells (csh, tcsh etc) you have to add the
882 eval "`guestfish --listen --csh`"
884 =head2 REMOTE CONTROL DETAILS
886 Remote control happens over a Unix domain socket called
887 C</tmp/.guestfish-$UID/socket-$PID>, where C<$UID> is the effective
888 user ID of the process, and C<$PID> is the process ID of the server.
890 Guestfish client and server versions must match exactly.
892 =head1 PREPARED DISK IMAGES
894 Use the I<-N type> or I<--new type> parameter to select one of a set
895 of preformatted disk images that guestfish can make for you to save
896 typing. This is particularly useful for testing purposes. This
897 option is used instead of the I<-a> option, and like I<-a> can appear
898 multiple times (and can be mixed with I<-a>).
900 The new disk is called C<test1.img> for the first I<-N>, C<test2.img>
901 for the second and so on. Existing files in the current directory are
904 The type briefly describes how the disk should be sized, partitioned,
905 how filesystem(s) should be created, and how content should be added.
906 Optionally the type can be followed by extra parameters, separated by
907 C<:> (colon) characters. For example, I<-N fs> creates a default
908 100MB, sparsely-allocated disk, containing a single partition, with
909 the partition formatted as ext2. I<-N fs:ext4:1G> is the same, but
910 for an ext4 filesystem on a 1GB disk instead.
912 To list the available types and any extra parameters they take, run:
914 guestfish -N help | less
916 Note that the prepared filesystem is not mounted. You would usually
917 have to use the C<mount /dev/sda1 /> command or add the
918 I<-m /dev/sda1> option.
920 If any I<-N> or I<--new> options are given, the guest is automatically
925 Create a 100MB disk with an ext4-formatted partition:
929 Create a 32MB disk with a VFAT-formatted partition, and mount it:
931 guestfish -N fs:vfat:32M -m /dev/sda1
933 Create a blank 200MB disk:
935 guestfish -N disk:200M
939 Some (not all) long-running commands send progress notification
940 messages as they are running. Guestfish turns these messages into
943 When a command that supports progress bars takes longer than two
944 seconds to run, and if progress bars are enabled, then you will see
945 one appearing below the command:
947 ><fs> copy-size /large-file /another-file 2048M
948 / 10% [#####-----------------------------------------] 00:30
950 The spinner on the left hand side moves round once for every progress
951 notification received from the backend. This is a (reasonably) golden
952 assurance that the command is "doing something" even if the progress
953 bar is not moving, because the command is able to send the progress
954 notifications. When the bar reaches 100% and the command finishes,
955 the spinner disappears.
957 Progress bars are enabled by default when guestfish is used
958 interactively. You can enable them even for non-interactive modes
959 using I<--progress-bars>, and you can disable them completely using
960 I<--no-progress-bars>.
962 =head1 GUESTFISH COMMANDS
964 The commands in this section are guestfish convenience commands, in
965 other words, they are not part of the L<guestfs(3)> API.
972 Without any parameter, this provides general help.
974 With a C<cmd> parameter, this displays detailed help for that command.
978 This exits guestfish. You can also use C<^D> key.
988 guestfish returns 0 if the commands completed without error, or
989 1 if there was an error.
991 =head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
997 The C<edit> command uses C<$EDITOR> as the editor. If not
1002 Used with the I<--remote> option to specify the remote guestfish
1003 process to control. See section
1004 L</REMOTE CONTROL GUESTFISH OVER A SOCKET>.
1008 The L</hexedit> command uses C<$HEXEDITOR> as the external hex
1009 editor. If not specified, the external L<hexedit(1)> program
1014 If compiled with GNU readline support, various files in the
1015 home directory can be used. See L</FILES>.
1017 =item LIBGUESTFS_APPEND
1019 Pass additional options to the guest kernel.
1021 =item LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG
1023 Set C<LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG=1> to enable verbose messages. This has the
1024 same effect as using the B<-v> option.
1026 =item LIBGUESTFS_MEMSIZE
1028 Set the memory allocated to the qemu process, in megabytes. For
1031 LIBGUESTFS_MEMSIZE=700
1033 =item LIBGUESTFS_PATH
1035 Set the path that guestfish uses to search for kernel and initrd.img.
1036 See the discussion of paths in L<guestfs(3)>.
1038 =item LIBGUESTFS_QEMU
1040 Set the default qemu binary that libguestfs uses. If not set, then
1041 the qemu which was found at compile time by the configure script is
1044 =item LIBGUESTFS_TRACE
1046 Set C<LIBGUESTFS_TRACE=1> to enable command traces.
1050 The C<more> command uses C<$PAGER> as the pager. If not
1051 set, it uses C<more>.
1055 Location of temporary directory, defaults to C</tmp> except for the
1056 cached supermin appliance which defaults to C</var/tmp>.
1058 If libguestfs was compiled to use the supermin appliance then the
1059 real appliance is cached in this directory, shared between all
1060 handles belonging to the same EUID. You can use C<$TMPDIR> to
1061 configure another directory to use in case C</var/tmp> is not large
1070 =item $HOME/.guestfish
1072 If compiled with GNU readline support, then the command history
1073 is saved in this file.
1075 =item $HOME/.inputrc
1079 If compiled with GNU readline support, then these files can be used to
1080 configure readline. For further information, please see
1081 L<readline(3)/INITIALIZATION FILE>.
1083 To write rules which only apply to guestfish, use:
1089 Variables that you can set in inputrc that change the behaviour
1090 of guestfish in useful ways include:
1094 =item completion-ignore-case (default: on)
1096 By default, guestfish will ignore case when tab-completing
1097 paths on the disk. Use:
1099 set completion-ignore-case off
1101 to make guestfish case sensitive.
1107 =item test2.img (etc)
1109 When using the C<-N> or C<--new> option, the prepared disk or
1110 filesystem will be created in the file C<test1.img> in the current
1111 directory. The second use of C<-N> will use C<test2.img> and so on.
1112 Any existing file with the same name will be overwritten.
1119 L<http://libguestfs.org/>,
1122 L<virt-copy-out(1)>,
1125 L<virt-filesystems(1)>,
1126 L<virt-inspector(1)>,
1127 L<virt-list-filesystems(1)>,
1128 L<virt-list-partitions(1)>,
1141 Richard W.M. Jones (C<rjones at redhat dot com>)
1145 Copyright (C) 2009-2010 Red Hat Inc.
1146 L<http://libguestfs.org/>
1148 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
1149 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1150 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
1151 (at your option) any later version.
1153 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1154 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1155 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1156 GNU General Public License for more details.
1158 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1159 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
1160 Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.