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 upload new_motd /etc/motd
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<-v> | B<--verbose>
102 Enable very verbose messages. This is particularly useful if you find
107 =head1 COMMANDS ON COMMAND LINE
109 Any additional (non-option) arguments are treated as commands to
112 Commands to execute should be separated by a colon (C<:>), where the
113 colon is a separate parameter. Thus:
115 guestfish cmd [args...] : cmd [args...] : cmd [args...] ...
117 If there are no additional arguments, then we enter a shell, either an
118 interactive shell with a prompt (if the input is a terminal) or a
119 non-interactive shell.
121 In either command line mode or non-interactive shell, the first
122 command that gives an error causes the whole shell to exit. In
123 interactive mode (with a prompt) if a command fails, you can continue
126 =head1 USING launch (OR run)
128 As with L<guestfs(3)>, you must first configure your guest by adding
129 disks, then launch it, then mount any disks you need, and finally
130 issue actions/commands. So the general order of the day is:
152 C<run> is a synonym for C<launch>. You must C<launch> (or C<run>)
153 your guest before mounting or performing any other commands.
155 The only exception is that if the C<-m> or C<--mount> option was
156 given, the guest is automatically run for you (simply because
157 guestfish can't mount the disks you asked for without doing this).
161 You can quote ordinary parameters using either single or double
164 add "file with a space.img"
170 A few commands require a list of strings to be passed. For these, use
171 a space-separated list, enclosed in quotes. For example:
173 vgcreate VG "/dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1"
182 Without any parameter, this lists all commands. With a C<cmd>
183 parameter, this displays detailed help for a command.
187 This exits guestfish. You can also use C<^D> key.
189 =head2 alloc | allocate
193 This creates an empty (zeroed) file of the given size, and then adds
194 so it can be further examined.
196 For more advanced image creation, see L<qemu-img(1)> utility.
198 Size can be specified (where C<nn> means a number):
202 =item C<nn> or C<nn>K or C<nn>KB
204 number of kilobytes, eg: C<1440> = standard 3.5in floppy
206 =item C<nn>M or C<nn>MB
210 =item C<nn>G or C<nn>GB
216 number of 512 byte sectors
222 =head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
226 =item LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG
228 Set C<LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG=1> to enable verbose messages. This has the
229 same effect as using the B<-v> option.
231 =item LIBGUESTFS_PATH
233 Set the path that guestfish uses to search for kernel and initrd.img.
234 See the discussion of paths in L<guestfs(3)>.
238 If compiled with GNU readline support, then the command history
239 is saved in C<$HOME/.guestfish>
246 L<http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/libguestfs>.
250 Richard W.M. Jones (C<rjones at redhat dot com>)
254 Copyright (C) 2009 Red Hat Inc.
255 L<http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/libguestfs>
257 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
258 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
259 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
260 (at your option) any later version.
262 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
263 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
264 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
265 GNU General Public License for more details.
267 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
268 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
269 Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.