1 =head2 add-cdrom | cdrom
5 This function adds a virtual CD-ROM disk image to the guest.
7 This is equivalent to the qemu parameter C<-cdrom filename>.
13 This function adds a virtual machine disk image C<filename> to the
14 guest. The first time you call this function, the disk appears as IDE
15 disk 0 (C</dev/sda>) in the guest, the second time as C</dev/sdb>, and
18 You don't necessarily need to be root when using libguestfs. However
19 you obviously do need sufficient permissions to access the filename
20 for whatever operations you want to perform (ie. read access if you
21 just want to read the image or write access if you want to modify the
24 This is equivalent to the qemu parameter C<-drive file=filename>.
30 Close the current Augeas handle and free up any resources
31 used by it. After calling this, you have to call
32 C<aug-init> again before you can use any other
37 aug-defnode name expr val
39 Defines a variable C<name> whose value is the result of
42 If C<expr> evaluates to an empty nodeset, a node is created,
43 equivalent to calling C<aug-set> C<expr>, C<value>.
44 C<name> will be the nodeset containing that single node.
46 On success this returns a pair containing the
47 number of nodes in the nodeset, and a boolean flag
48 if a node was created.
54 Defines an Augeas variable C<name> whose value is the result
55 of evaluating C<expr>. If C<expr> is NULL, then C<name> is
58 On success this returns the number of nodes in C<expr>, or
59 C<0> if C<expr> evaluates to something which is not a nodeset.
65 Look up the value associated with C<path>. If C<path>
66 matches exactly one node, the C<value> is returned.
72 Create a new Augeas handle for editing configuration files.
73 If there was any previous Augeas handle associated with this
74 guestfs session, then it is closed.
76 You must call this before using any other C<aug-*>
79 C<root> is the filesystem root. C<root> must not be NULL,
82 The flags are the same as the flags defined in
83 E<lt>augeas.hE<gt>, the logical I<or> of the following
88 =item C<AUG_SAVE_BACKUP> = 1
90 Keep the original file with a C<.augsave> extension.
92 =item C<AUG_SAVE_NEWFILE> = 2
94 Save changes into a file with extension C<.augnew>, and
95 do not overwrite original. Overrides C<AUG_SAVE_BACKUP>.
97 =item C<AUG_TYPE_CHECK> = 4
99 Typecheck lenses (can be expensive).
101 =item C<AUG_NO_STDINC> = 8
103 Do not use standard load path for modules.
105 =item C<AUG_SAVE_NOOP> = 16
107 Make save a no-op, just record what would have been changed.
109 =item C<AUG_NO_LOAD> = 32
111 Do not load the tree in C<aug-init>.
115 To close the handle, you can call C<aug-close>.
117 To find out more about Augeas, see L<http://augeas.net/>.
121 aug-insert path label true|false
123 Create a new sibling C<label> for C<path>, inserting it into
124 the tree before or after C<path> (depending on the boolean
127 C<path> must match exactly one existing node in the tree, and
128 C<label> must be a label, ie. not contain C</>, C<*> or end
129 with a bracketed index C<[N]>.
135 Load files into the tree.
137 See C<aug_load> in the Augeas documentation for the full gory
144 This is just a shortcut for listing C<aug-match>
145 C<path/*> and sorting the resulting nodes into alphabetical order.
151 Returns a list of paths which match the path expression C<path>.
152 The returned paths are sufficiently qualified so that they match
153 exactly one node in the current tree.
159 Move the node C<src> to C<dest>. C<src> must match exactly
160 one node. C<dest> is overwritten if it exists.
166 Remove C<path> and all of its children.
168 On success this returns the number of entries which were removed.
174 This writes all pending changes to disk.
176 The flags which were passed to C<aug-init> affect exactly
183 Set the value associated with C<path> to C<value>.
185 =head2 blockdev-flushbufs
187 blockdev-flushbufs device
189 This tells the kernel to flush internal buffers associated
192 This uses the L<blockdev(8)> command.
194 =head2 blockdev-getbsz
196 blockdev-getbsz device
198 This returns the block size of a device.
200 (Note this is different from both I<size in blocks> and
201 I<filesystem block size>).
203 This uses the L<blockdev(8)> command.
205 =head2 blockdev-getro
207 blockdev-getro device
209 Returns a boolean indicating if the block device is read-only
210 (true if read-only, false if not).
212 This uses the L<blockdev(8)> command.
214 =head2 blockdev-getsize64
216 blockdev-getsize64 device
218 This returns the size of the device in bytes.
220 See also C<blockdev-getsz>.
222 This uses the L<blockdev(8)> command.
224 =head2 blockdev-getss
226 blockdev-getss device
228 This returns the size of sectors on a block device.
229 Usually 512, but can be larger for modern devices.
231 (Note, this is not the size in sectors, use C<blockdev-getsz>
234 This uses the L<blockdev(8)> command.
236 =head2 blockdev-getsz
238 blockdev-getsz device
240 This returns the size of the device in units of 512-byte sectors
241 (even if the sectorsize isn't 512 bytes ... weird).
243 See also C<blockdev-getss> for the real sector size of
244 the device, and C<blockdev-getsize64> for the more
245 useful I<size in bytes>.
247 This uses the L<blockdev(8)> command.
249 =head2 blockdev-rereadpt
251 blockdev-rereadpt device
253 Reread the partition table on C<device>.
255 This uses the L<blockdev(8)> command.
257 =head2 blockdev-setbsz
259 blockdev-setbsz device blocksize
261 This sets the block size of a device.
263 (Note this is different from both I<size in blocks> and
264 I<filesystem block size>).
266 This uses the L<blockdev(8)> command.
268 =head2 blockdev-setro
270 blockdev-setro device
272 Sets the block device named C<device> to read-only.
274 This uses the L<blockdev(8)> command.
276 =head2 blockdev-setrw
278 blockdev-setrw device
280 Sets the block device named C<device> to read-write.
282 This uses the L<blockdev(8)> command.
288 Return the contents of the file named C<path>.
290 Note that this function cannot correctly handle binary files
291 (specifically, files containing C<\0> character which is treated
292 as end of string). For those you need to use the C<download>
293 function which has a more complex interface.
295 Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit
296 of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. To transfer large files you should use
301 checksum csumtype path
303 This call computes the MD5, SHAx or CRC checksum of the
306 The type of checksum to compute is given by the C<csumtype>
307 parameter which must have one of the following values:
313 Compute the cyclic redundancy check (CRC) specified by POSIX
314 for the C<cksum> command.
318 Compute the MD5 hash (using the C<md5sum> program).
322 Compute the SHA1 hash (using the C<sha1sum> program).
326 Compute the SHA224 hash (using the C<sha224sum> program).
330 Compute the SHA256 hash (using the C<sha256sum> program).
334 Compute the SHA384 hash (using the C<sha384sum> program).
338 Compute the SHA512 hash (using the C<sha512sum> program).
342 The checksum is returned as a printable string.
348 Change the mode (permissions) of C<path> to C<mode>. Only
349 numeric modes are supported.
353 chown owner group path
355 Change the file owner to C<owner> and group to C<group>.
357 Only numeric uid and gid are supported. If you want to use
358 names, you will need to locate and parse the password file
359 yourself (Augeas support makes this relatively easy).
363 command 'arguments ...'
365 This call runs a command from the guest filesystem. The
366 filesystem must be mounted, and must contain a compatible
367 operating system (ie. something Linux, with the same
368 or compatible processor architecture).
370 The single parameter is an argv-style list of arguments.
371 The first element is the name of the program to run.
372 Subsequent elements are parameters. The list must be
373 non-empty (ie. must contain a program name).
375 The return value is anything printed to I<stdout> by
378 If the command returns a non-zero exit status, then
379 this function returns an error message. The error message
380 string is the content of I<stderr> from the command.
382 The C<$PATH> environment variable will contain at least
383 C</usr/bin> and C</bin>. If you require a program from
384 another location, you should provide the full path in the
387 Shared libraries and data files required by the program
388 must be available on filesystems which are mounted in the
389 correct places. It is the caller's responsibility to ensure
390 all filesystems that are needed are mounted at the right
393 Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit
394 of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. To transfer large files you should use
399 command-lines 'arguments ...'
401 This is the same as C<command>, but splits the
402 result into a list of lines.
404 Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit
405 of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. To transfer large files you should use
410 config qemuparam qemuvalue
412 This can be used to add arbitrary qemu command line parameters
413 of the form C<-param value>. Actually it's not quite arbitrary - we
414 prevent you from setting some parameters which would interfere with
415 parameters that we use.
417 The first character of C<param> string must be a C<-> (dash).
419 C<value> can be NULL.
425 This copies a file from C<src> to C<dest> where C<dest> is
426 either a destination filename or destination directory.
432 This copies a file or directory from C<src> to C<dest>
433 recursively using the C<cp -a> command.
437 debug subcmd 'extraargs ...'
439 The C<debug> command exposes some internals of
440 C<guestfsd> (the guestfs daemon) that runs inside the
443 There is no comprehensive help for this command. You have
444 to look at the file C<daemon/debug.c> in the libguestfs source
445 to find out what you can do.
451 This returns the kernel messages (C<dmesg> output) from
452 the guest kernel. This is sometimes useful for extended
453 debugging of problems.
455 Another way to get the same information is to enable
456 verbose messages with C<set-verbose> or by setting
457 the environment variable C<LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG=1> before
462 download remotefilename (filename|-)
464 Download file C<remotefilename> and save it as C<filename>
465 on the local machine.
467 C<filename> can also be a named pipe.
469 See also C<upload>, C<cat>.
471 Use C<-> instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.
475 drop-caches whattodrop
477 This instructs the guest kernel to drop its page cache,
478 and/or dentries and inode caches. The parameter C<whattodrop>
479 tells the kernel what precisely to drop, see
480 L<http://linux-mm.org/Drop_Caches>
482 Setting C<whattodrop> to 3 should drop everything.
484 This automatically calls L<sync(2)> before the operation,
485 so that the maximum guest memory is freed.
491 This compares the two files C<file1> and C<file2> and returns
492 true if their content is exactly equal, or false otherwise.
494 The external L<cmp(1)> program is used for the comparison.
500 This returns C<true> if and only if there is a file, directory
501 (or anything) with the given C<path> name.
503 See also C<is-file>, C<is-dir>, C<stat>.
509 This call uses the standard L<file(1)> command to determine
510 the type or contents of the file. This also works on devices,
511 for example to find out whether a partition contains a filesystem.
513 The exact command which runs is C<file -bsL path>. Note in
514 particular that the filename is not prepended to the output
521 This command lists out all files and directories, recursively,
522 starting at C<directory>. It is essentially equivalent to
523 running the shell command C<find directory -print> but some
524 post-processing happens on the output, described below.
526 This returns a list of strings I<without any prefix>. Thus
527 if the directory structure was:
533 then the returned list from C<find> C</tmp> would be
541 If C<directory> is not a directory, then this command returns
544 The returned list is sorted.
550 This runs the filesystem checker (fsck) on C<device> which
551 should have filesystem type C<fstype>.
553 The returned integer is the status. See L<fsck(8)> for the
554 list of status codes from C<fsck>.
562 Multiple status codes can be summed together.
566 A non-zero return code can mean "success", for example if
567 errors have been corrected on the filesystem.
571 Checking or repairing NTFS volumes is not supported
576 This command is entirely equivalent to running C<fsck -a -t fstype device>.
582 Return the additional kernel options which are added to the
583 guest kernel command line.
585 If C<NULL> then no options are added.
591 Get the autosync flag.
597 This returns the ext2/3/4 filesystem label of the filesystem on
604 This returns the ext2/3/4 filesystem UUID of the filesystem on
611 Return the current search path.
613 This is always non-NULL. If it wasn't set already, then this will
614 return the default path.
620 Return the current qemu binary.
622 This is always non-NULL. If it wasn't set already, then this will
623 return the default qemu binary name.
629 This returns the current state as an opaque integer. This is
630 only useful for printing debug and internal error messages.
632 For more information on states, see L<guestfs(3)>.
638 This returns the verbose messages flag.
642 grub-install root device
644 This command installs GRUB (the Grand Unified Bootloader) on
645 C<device>, with the root directory being C<root>.
651 This runs C<hexdump -C> on the given C<path>. The result is
652 the human-readable, canonical hex dump of the file.
654 Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit
655 of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. To transfer large files you should use
662 This returns true iff this handle is busy processing a command
663 (in the C<BUSY> state).
665 For more information on states, see L<guestfs(3)>.
671 This returns true iff this handle is being configured
672 (in the C<CONFIG> state).
674 For more information on states, see L<guestfs(3)>.
680 This returns C<true> if and only if there is a directory
681 with the given C<path> name. Note that it returns false for
682 other objects like files.
690 This returns C<true> if and only if there is a file
691 with the given C<path> name. Note that it returns false for
692 other objects like directories.
700 This returns true iff this handle is launching the subprocess
701 (in the C<LAUNCHING> state).
703 For more information on states, see L<guestfs(3)>.
709 This returns true iff this handle is ready to accept commands
710 (in the C<READY> state).
712 For more information on states, see L<guestfs(3)>.
714 =head2 kill-subprocess
718 This kills the qemu subprocess. You should never need to call this.
724 Internally libguestfs is implemented by running a virtual machine
727 You should call this after configuring the handle
728 (eg. adding drives) but before performing any actions.
734 List all the block devices.
736 The full block device names are returned, eg. C</dev/sda>
738 =head2 list-partitions
742 List all the partitions detected on all block devices.
744 The full partition device names are returned, eg. C</dev/sda1>
746 This does not return logical volumes. For that you will need to
753 List the files in C<directory> (relative to the root directory,
754 there is no cwd) in the format of 'ls -la'.
756 This command is mostly useful for interactive sessions. It
757 is I<not> intended that you try to parse the output string.
763 List the files in C<directory> (relative to the root directory,
764 there is no cwd). The '.' and '..' entries are not returned, but
765 hidden files are shown.
767 This command is mostly useful for interactive sessions. Programs
768 should probably use C<readdir> instead.
774 Returns file information for the given C<path>.
776 This is the same as C<stat> except that if C<path>
777 is a symbolic link, then the link is stat-ed, not the file it
780 This is the same as the C<lstat(2)> system call.
784 lvcreate logvol volgroup mbytes
786 This creates an LVM volume group called C<logvol>
787 on the volume group C<volgroup>, with C<size> megabytes.
789 =head2 lvm-remove-all
793 This command removes all LVM logical volumes, volume groups
794 and physical volumes.
796 B<This command is dangerous. Without careful use you
797 can easily destroy all your data>.
803 Remove an LVM logical volume C<device>, where C<device> is
804 the path to the LV, such as C</dev/VG/LV>.
806 You can also remove all LVs in a volume group by specifying
807 the VG name, C</dev/VG>.
811 lvresize device mbytes
813 This resizes (expands or shrinks) an existing LVM logical
814 volume to C<mbytes>. When reducing, data in the reduced part
821 List all the logical volumes detected. This is the equivalent
822 of the L<lvs(8)> command.
824 This returns a list of the logical volume device names
825 (eg. C</dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00>).
827 See also C<lvs-full>.
833 List all the logical volumes detected. This is the equivalent
834 of the L<lvs(8)> command. The "full" version includes all fields.
840 Create a directory named C<path>.
846 Create a directory named C<path>, creating any parent directories
847 as necessary. This is like the C<mkdir -p> shell command.
853 This creates a filesystem on C<device> (usually a partition
854 or LVM logical volume). The filesystem type is C<fstype>, for
859 mount device mountpoint
861 Mount a guest disk at a position in the filesystem. Block devices
862 are named C</dev/sda>, C</dev/sdb> and so on, as they were added to
863 the guest. If those block devices contain partitions, they will have
864 the usual names (eg. C</dev/sda1>). Also LVM C</dev/VG/LV>-style
867 The rules are the same as for L<mount(2)>: A filesystem must
868 first be mounted on C</> before others can be mounted. Other
869 filesystems can only be mounted on directories which already
872 The mounted filesystem is writable, if we have sufficient permissions
873 on the underlying device.
875 The filesystem options C<sync> and C<noatime> are set with this
876 call, in order to improve reliability.
880 mount-options options device mountpoint
882 This is the same as the C<mount> command, but it
883 allows you to set the mount options as for the
884 L<mount(8)> I<-o> flag.
888 mount-ro device mountpoint
890 This is the same as the C<mount> command, but it
891 mounts the filesystem with the read-only (I<-o ro>) flag.
895 mount-vfs options vfstype device mountpoint
897 This is the same as the C<mount> command, but it
898 allows you to set both the mount options and the vfstype
899 as for the L<mount(8)> I<-o> and I<-t> flags.
905 This returns the list of currently mounted filesystems. It returns
906 the list of devices (eg. C</dev/sda1>, C</dev/VG/LV>).
908 Some internal mounts are not shown.
914 This moves a file from C<src> to C<dest> where C<dest> is
915 either a destination filename or destination directory.
921 This is a test probe into the guestfs daemon running inside
922 the qemu subprocess. Calling this function checks that the
923 daemon responds to the ping message, without affecting the daemon
924 or attached block device(s) in any other way.
930 This creates an LVM physical volume on the named C<device>,
931 where C<device> should usually be a partition name such
938 This wipes a physical volume C<device> so that LVM will no longer
941 The implementation uses the C<pvremove> command which refuses to
942 wipe physical volumes that contain any volume groups, so you have
943 to remove those first.
949 This resizes (expands or shrinks) an existing LVM physical
950 volume to match the new size of the underlying device.
956 List all the physical volumes detected. This is the equivalent
957 of the L<pvs(8)> command.
959 This returns a list of just the device names that contain
960 PVs (eg. C</dev/sda2>).
962 See also C<pvs-full>.
968 List all the physical volumes detected. This is the equivalent
969 of the L<pvs(8)> command. The "full" version includes all fields.
975 Return the contents of the file named C<path>.
977 The file contents are returned as a list of lines. Trailing
978 C<LF> and C<CRLF> character sequences are I<not> returned.
980 Note that this function cannot correctly handle binary files
981 (specifically, files containing C<\0> character which is treated
982 as end of line). For those you need to use the C<read-file>
983 function which has a more complex interface.
989 This resizes an ext2 or ext3 filesystem to match the size of
990 the underlying device.
996 Remove the single file C<path>.
1002 Remove the file or directory C<path>, recursively removing the
1003 contents if its a directory. This is like the C<rm -rf> shell
1010 Remove the single directory C<path>.
1012 =head2 set-append | append
1016 This function is used to add additional options to the
1017 guest kernel command line.
1019 The default is C<NULL> unless overridden by setting
1020 C<LIBGUESTFS_APPEND> environment variable.
1022 Setting C<append> to C<NULL> means I<no> additional options
1023 are passed (libguestfs always adds a few of its own).
1025 =head2 set-autosync | autosync
1027 set-autosync true|false
1029 If C<autosync> is true, this enables autosync. Libguestfs will make a
1030 best effort attempt to run C<umount-all> followed by
1031 C<sync> when the handle is closed
1032 (also if the program exits without closing handles).
1034 This is disabled by default (except in guestfish where it is
1035 enabled by default).
1039 set-e2label device label
1041 This sets the ext2/3/4 filesystem label of the filesystem on
1042 C<device> to C<label>. Filesystem labels are limited to
1045 You can use either C<tune2fs-l> or C<get-e2label>
1046 to return the existing label on a filesystem.
1050 set-e2uuid device uuid
1052 This sets the ext2/3/4 filesystem UUID of the filesystem on
1053 C<device> to C<uuid>. The format of the UUID and alternatives
1054 such as C<clear>, C<random> and C<time> are described in the
1055 L<tune2fs(8)> manpage.
1057 You can use either C<tune2fs-l> or C<get-e2uuid>
1058 to return the existing UUID of a filesystem.
1060 =head2 set-path | path
1064 Set the path that libguestfs searches for kernel and initrd.img.
1066 The default is C<$libdir/guestfs> unless overridden by setting
1067 C<LIBGUESTFS_PATH> environment variable.
1069 Setting C<path> to C<NULL> restores the default path.
1071 =head2 set-qemu | qemu
1075 Set the qemu binary that we will use.
1077 The default is chosen when the library was compiled by the
1080 You can also override this by setting the C<LIBGUESTFS_QEMU>
1081 environment variable.
1083 Setting C<qemu> to C<NULL> restores the default qemu binary.
1085 =head2 set-verbose | verbose
1087 set-verbose true|false
1089 If C<verbose> is true, this turns on verbose messages (to C<stderr>).
1091 Verbose messages are disabled unless the environment variable
1092 C<LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG> is defined and set to C<1>.
1096 sfdisk device cyls heads sectors 'lines ...'
1098 This is a direct interface to the L<sfdisk(8)> program for creating
1099 partitions on block devices.
1101 C<device> should be a block device, for example C</dev/sda>.
1103 C<cyls>, C<heads> and C<sectors> are the number of cylinders, heads
1104 and sectors on the device, which are passed directly to sfdisk as
1105 the I<-C>, I<-H> and I<-S> parameters. If you pass C<0> for any
1106 of these, then the corresponding parameter is omitted. Usually for
1107 'large' disks, you can just pass C<0> for these, but for small
1108 (floppy-sized) disks, sfdisk (or rather, the kernel) cannot work
1109 out the right geometry and you will need to tell it.
1111 C<lines> is a list of lines that we feed to C<sfdisk>. For more
1112 information refer to the L<sfdisk(8)> manpage.
1114 To create a single partition occupying the whole disk, you would
1115 pass C<lines> as a single element list, when the single element being
1116 the string C<,> (comma).
1118 See also: C<sfdisk-l>, C<sfdisk-N>
1120 B<This command is dangerous. Without careful use you
1121 can easily destroy all your data>.
1125 sfdisk-N device n cyls heads sectors line
1127 This runs L<sfdisk(8)> option to modify just the single
1128 partition C<n> (note: C<n> counts from 1).
1130 For other parameters, see C<sfdisk>. You should usually
1131 pass C<0> for the cyls/heads/sectors parameters.
1133 B<This command is dangerous. Without careful use you
1134 can easily destroy all your data>.
1136 =head2 sfdisk-disk-geometry
1138 sfdisk-disk-geometry device
1140 This displays the disk geometry of C<device> read from the
1141 partition table. Especially in the case where the underlying
1142 block device has been resized, this can be different from the
1143 kernel's idea of the geometry (see C<sfdisk-kernel-geometry>).
1145 The result is in human-readable format, and not designed to
1148 =head2 sfdisk-kernel-geometry
1150 sfdisk-kernel-geometry device
1152 This displays the kernel's idea of the geometry of C<device>.
1154 The result is in human-readable format, and not designed to
1161 This displays the partition table on C<device>, in the
1162 human-readable output of the L<sfdisk(8)> command. It is
1163 not intended to be parsed.
1169 Returns file information for the given C<path>.
1171 This is the same as the C<stat(2)> system call.
1177 Returns file system statistics for any mounted file system.
1178 C<path> should be a file or directory in the mounted file system
1179 (typically it is the mount point itself, but it doesn't need to be).
1181 This is the same as the C<statvfs(2)> system call.
1187 This runs the L<strings(1)> command on a file and returns
1188 the list of printable strings found.
1190 Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit
1191 of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. To transfer large files you should use
1196 strings-e encoding path
1198 This is like the C<strings> command, but allows you to
1199 specify the encoding.
1201 See the L<strings(1)> manpage for the full list of encodings.
1203 Commonly useful encodings are C<l> (lower case L) which will
1204 show strings inside Windows/x86 files.
1206 The returned strings are transcoded to UTF-8.
1208 Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit
1209 of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. To transfer large files you should use
1216 This syncs the disk, so that any writes are flushed through to the
1217 underlying disk image.
1219 You should always call this if you have modified a disk image, before
1224 tar-in (tarfile|-) directory
1226 This command uploads and unpacks local file C<tarfile> (an
1227 I<uncompressed> tar file) into C<directory>.
1229 To upload a compressed tarball, use C<tgz-in>.
1231 Use C<-> instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.
1235 tar-out directory (tarfile|-)
1237 This command packs the contents of C<directory> and downloads
1238 it to local file C<tarfile>.
1240 To download a compressed tarball, use C<tgz-out>.
1242 Use C<-> instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.
1246 tgz-in (tarball|-) directory
1248 This command uploads and unpacks local file C<tarball> (a
1249 I<gzip compressed> tar file) into C<directory>.
1251 To upload an uncompressed tarball, use C<tar-in>.
1253 Use C<-> instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.
1257 tgz-out directory (tarball|-)
1259 This command packs the contents of C<directory> and downloads
1260 it to local file C<tarball>.
1262 To download an uncompressed tarball, use C<tar-out>.
1264 Use C<-> instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.
1270 Touch acts like the L<touch(1)> command. It can be used to
1271 update the timestamps on a file, or, if the file does not exist,
1272 to create a new zero-length file.
1278 This returns the contents of the ext2, ext3 or ext4 filesystem
1279 superblock on C<device>.
1281 It is the same as running C<tune2fs -l device>. See L<tune2fs(8)>
1282 manpage for more details. The list of fields returned isn't
1283 clearly defined, and depends on both the version of C<tune2fs>
1284 that libguestfs was built against, and the filesystem itself.
1286 =head2 umount | unmount
1290 This unmounts the given filesystem. The filesystem may be
1291 specified either by its mountpoint (path) or the device which
1292 contains the filesystem.
1294 =head2 umount-all | unmount-all
1298 This unmounts all mounted filesystems.
1300 Some internal mounts are not unmounted by this call.
1304 upload (filename|-) remotefilename
1306 Upload local file C<filename> to C<remotefilename> on the
1309 C<filename> can also be a named pipe.
1311 See also C<download>.
1313 Use C<-> instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.
1317 vg-activate true|false 'volgroups ...'
1319 This command activates or (if C<activate> is false) deactivates
1320 all logical volumes in the listed volume groups C<volgroups>.
1321 If activated, then they are made known to the
1322 kernel, ie. they appear as C</dev/mapper> devices. If deactivated,
1323 then those devices disappear.
1325 This command is the same as running C<vgchange -a y|n volgroups...>
1327 Note that if C<volgroups> is an empty list then B<all> volume groups
1328 are activated or deactivated.
1330 =head2 vg-activate-all
1332 vg-activate-all true|false
1334 This command activates or (if C<activate> is false) deactivates
1335 all logical volumes in all volume groups.
1336 If activated, then they are made known to the
1337 kernel, ie. they appear as C</dev/mapper> devices. If deactivated,
1338 then those devices disappear.
1340 This command is the same as running C<vgchange -a y|n>
1344 vgcreate volgroup 'physvols ...'
1346 This creates an LVM volume group called C<volgroup>
1347 from the non-empty list of physical volumes C<physvols>.
1353 Remove an LVM volume group C<vgname>, (for example C<VG>).
1355 This also forcibly removes all logical volumes in the volume
1362 List all the volumes groups detected. This is the equivalent
1363 of the L<vgs(8)> command.
1365 This returns a list of just the volume group names that were
1366 detected (eg. C<VolGroup00>).
1368 See also C<vgs-full>.
1374 List all the volumes groups detected. This is the equivalent
1375 of the L<vgs(8)> command. The "full" version includes all fields.
1379 write-file path content size
1381 This call creates a file called C<path>. The contents of the
1382 file is the string C<content> (which can contain any 8 bit data),
1383 with length C<size>.
1385 As a special case, if C<size> is C<0>
1386 then the length is calculated using C<strlen> (so in this case
1387 the content cannot contain embedded ASCII NULs).
1389 I<NB.> Owing to a bug, writing content containing ASCII NUL
1390 characters does I<not> work, even if the length is specified.
1391 We hope to resolve this bug in a future version. In the meantime
1394 Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit
1395 of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. To transfer large files you should use
1402 This command writes zeroes over the first few blocks of C<device>.
1404 How many blocks are zeroed isn't specified (but it's I<not> enough
1405 to securely wipe the device). It should be sufficient to remove
1406 any partition tables, filesystem superblocks and so on.
1412 This runs the I<zerofree> program on C<device>. This program
1413 claims to zero unused inodes and disk blocks on an ext2/3
1414 filesystem, thus making it possible to compress the filesystem
1417 You should B<not> run this program if the filesystem is
1420 It is possible that using this program can damage the filesystem
1421 or data on the filesystem.