5 guestfish - the libguestfs filesystem interactive shell
9 guestfish [--options] [commands]
13 =head2 From shell scripts
15 Create a new C</etc/motd> file in a guest:
20 mount /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 /
21 write_file /etc/motd "Hello users" 0
24 List the LVs in a guest:
32 =head2 On the command line
34 List the LVM PVs in a guest image:
36 guestfish add disk.img : run : pvs
38 Remove C</boot/grub/menu.lst> (in reality not such a great idea):
40 guestfish --add disk.img \
41 --mount /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 \
42 --mount /dev/sda1:/boot \
43 rm /boot/grub/menu.lst : \
46 =head2 As an interactive shell
50 Welcome to guestfish, the libguestfs filesystem interactive shell for
51 editing virtual machine filesystems.
53 Type: 'help' for help with commands
54 'quit' to quit the shell
60 Guestfish is a shell and command-line tool for examining and modifying
61 virtual machine filesystems. It uses libguestfs and exposes all of
62 the functionality of the guestfs API, see L<guestfs(3)>.
70 Displays general help on options.
72 =item B<-h> | B<--cmd-help>
74 Lists all available guestfish commands.
76 =item B<-h cmd> | B<--cmd-help cmd>
78 Displays detailed help on a single command C<cmd>.
80 =item B<-a image> | B<--add image>
82 Add a block device or virtual machine image to the shell.
84 =item B<-m dev[:mountpoint]> | B<--mount dev[:mountpoint]>
86 Mount the named partition or logical volume on the given mountpoint.
88 If the mountpoint is omitted, it defaults to C</>.
90 You have to mount something on C</> before most commands will work.
92 If any C<-m> or C<--mount> options are given, the guest is
93 automatically launched.
95 =item B<-n> | B<--no-sync>
97 Disable autosync. This is enabled by default. See the discussion
98 of autosync in the L<guestfs(3)> manpage.
100 =item B<-r> | B<--ro>
102 This changes the C<-m> option so that mounts are done read-only
103 (see C<guestfs_mount_ro> in the L<guestfs(3)> manpage).
105 =item B<-v> | B<--verbose>
107 Enable very verbose messages. This is particularly useful if you find
112 =head1 COMMANDS ON COMMAND LINE
114 Any additional (non-option) arguments are treated as commands to
117 Commands to execute should be separated by a colon (C<:>), where the
118 colon is a separate parameter. Thus:
120 guestfish cmd [args...] : cmd [args...] : cmd [args...] ...
122 If there are no additional arguments, then we enter a shell, either an
123 interactive shell with a prompt (if the input is a terminal) or a
124 non-interactive shell.
126 In either command line mode or non-interactive shell, the first
127 command that gives an error causes the whole shell to exit. In
128 interactive mode (with a prompt) if a command fails, you can continue
131 =head1 USING launch (OR run)
133 As with L<guestfs(3)>, you must first configure your guest by adding
134 disks, then launch it, then mount any disks you need, and finally
135 issue actions/commands. So the general order of the day is:
157 C<run> is a synonym for C<launch>. You must C<launch> (or C<run>)
158 your guest before mounting or performing any other commands.
160 The only exception is that if the C<-m> or C<--mount> option was
161 given, the guest is automatically run for you (simply because
162 guestfish can't mount the disks you asked for without doing this).
166 You can quote ordinary parameters using either single or double
169 add "file with a space.img"
175 A few commands require a list of strings to be passed. For these, use
176 a space-separated list, enclosed in quotes. For example:
178 vgcreate VG "/dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1"
182 Any line which starts with a I<#> character is treated as a comment
183 and ignored. The I<#> can optionally be preceeded by whitespace,
184 but B<not> by a command. For example:
190 Blank lines are also ignored.
199 Without any parameter, this lists all commands. With a C<cmd>
200 parameter, this displays detailed help for a command.
204 This exits guestfish. You can also use C<^D> key.
206 =head2 alloc | allocate
210 This creates an empty (zeroed) file of the given size, and then adds
211 so it can be further examined.
213 For more advanced image creation, see L<qemu-img(1)> utility.
215 Size can be specified (where C<nn> means a number):
219 =item C<nn> or C<nn>K or C<nn>KB
221 number of kilobytes, eg: C<1440> = standard 3.5in floppy
223 =item C<nn>M or C<nn>MB
227 =item C<nn>G or C<nn>GB
233 number of 512 byte sectors
239 =head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
243 =item LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG
245 Set C<LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG=1> to enable verbose messages. This has the
246 same effect as using the B<-v> option.
248 =item LIBGUESTFS_PATH
250 Set the path that guestfish uses to search for kernel and initrd.img.
251 See the discussion of paths in L<guestfs(3)>.
253 =item LIBGUESTFS_QEMU
255 Set the default qemu binary that libguestfs uses. If not set, then
256 the qemu which was found at compile time by the configure script is
261 If compiled with GNU readline support, then the command history
262 is saved in C<$HOME/.guestfish>
269 L<http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/libguestfs>.
273 Richard W.M. Jones (C<rjones at redhat dot com>)
277 Copyright (C) 2009 Red Hat Inc.
278 L<http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/libguestfs>
280 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
281 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
282 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
283 (at your option) any later version.
285 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
286 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
287 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
288 GNU General Public License for more details.
290 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
291 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
292 Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.