5 guestfish - the libguestfs filesystem interactive shell
9 guestfish [--options] [commands]
11 guestfish -i libvirt-domain
13 guestfish -i disk-image(s)
17 =head2 From shell scripts
19 Create a new C</etc/motd> file in a guest:
24 mount /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 /
25 write_file /etc/motd "Hello users" 0
28 List the LVs in a guest:
36 =head2 On the command line
38 List the LVM PVs in a guest image:
40 guestfish add disk.img : run : pvs
42 Remove C</boot/grub/menu.lst> (in reality not such a great idea):
44 guestfish --add disk.img \
45 --mount /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 \
46 --mount /dev/sda1:/boot \
47 rm /boot/grub/menu.lst
49 =head2 As an interactive shell
53 Welcome to guestfish, the libguestfs filesystem interactive shell for
54 editing virtual machine filesystems.
56 Type: 'help' for help with commands
57 'quit' to quit the shell
61 =head2 As a script interpreter
63 #!/usr/bin/guestfish -f
64 alloc /tmp/output.img 10M
66 part-disk /dev/sda mbr
71 eval `guestfish --listen`
72 guestfish --remote cmd
76 Guestfish is a shell and command-line tool for examining and modifying
77 virtual machine filesystems. It uses libguestfs and exposes all of
78 the functionality of the guestfs API, see L<guestfs(3)>.
86 Displays general help on options.
88 =item B<-h> | B<--cmd-help>
90 Lists all available guestfish commands.
92 =item B<-h cmd> | B<--cmd-help cmd>
94 Displays detailed help on a single command C<cmd>.
96 =item B<-a image> | B<--add image>
98 Add a block device or virtual machine image to the shell.
100 =item B<-D> | B<--no-dest-paths>
102 Don't tab-complete paths on the guest filesystem. It is useful to be
103 able to hit the tab key to complete paths on the guest filesystem, but
104 this causes extra "hidden" guestfs calls to be made, so this option is
105 here to allow this feature to be disabled.
107 =item B<-f file> | B<--file file>
109 Read commands from C<file>. To write pure guestfish
112 #!/usr/bin/guestfish -f
114 =item B<-i> | B<--inspector>
116 Run virt-inspector on the named libvirt domain or list of disk
117 images. If virt-inspector is available and if it can identify
118 the domain or disk images, then partitions will be mounted
119 correctly at start-up.
121 Typical usage is either:
125 (for an inactive libvirt domain called I<myguest>), or:
127 guestfish --ro -i myguest
129 (for active domains, readonly), or specify the block device directly:
131 guestfish -i /dev/Guests/MyGuest
133 You cannot use I<-a>, I<-m>, I<--listen>, I<--remote> or I<--selinux>
134 in conjunction with this option, and options other than I<--ro> might
135 not behave correctly.
137 See also: L<virt-inspector(1)>.
141 Fork into the background and listen for remote commands. See section
142 I<REMOTE CONTROL GUESTFISH OVER A SOCKET> below.
144 =item B<-m dev[:mountpoint]> | B<--mount dev[:mountpoint]>
146 Mount the named partition or logical volume on the given mountpoint.
148 If the mountpoint is omitted, it defaults to C</>.
150 You have to mount something on C</> before most commands will work.
152 If any C<-m> or C<--mount> options are given, the guest is
153 automatically launched.
155 If you don't know what filesystems a disk image contains, you
156 can either run guestfish without this option, then list the partitions
157 and LVs available (see L</list-partitions> and L</lvs> commands),
158 or you can use the L<virt-list-filesystems(1)> program.
160 =item B<-n> | B<--no-sync>
162 Disable autosync. This is enabled by default. See the discussion
163 of autosync in the L<guestfs(3)> manpage.
165 =item B<--remote[=pid]>
167 Send remote commands to C<$GUESTFISH_PID> or C<pid>. See section
168 I<REMOTE CONTROL GUESTFISH OVER A SOCKET> below.
170 =item B<-r> | B<--ro>
172 This changes the C<-m> option so that mounts are done read-only
173 (see C<guestfs_mount_ro> in the L<guestfs(3)> manpage).
177 Enable SELinux support for the guest. See L<guestfs(3)/SELINUX>.
179 =item B<-v> | B<--verbose>
181 Enable very verbose messages. This is particularly useful if you find
184 =item B<-V> | B<--version>
186 Display the guestfish / libguestfs version number and exit.
190 Echo each command before executing it.
194 =head1 COMMANDS ON COMMAND LINE
196 Any additional (non-option) arguments are treated as commands to
199 Commands to execute should be separated by a colon (C<:>), where the
200 colon is a separate parameter. Thus:
202 guestfish cmd [args...] : cmd [args...] : cmd [args...] ...
204 If there are no additional arguments, then we enter a shell, either an
205 interactive shell with a prompt (if the input is a terminal) or a
206 non-interactive shell.
208 In either command line mode or non-interactive shell, the first
209 command that gives an error causes the whole shell to exit. In
210 interactive mode (with a prompt) if a command fails, you can continue
213 =head1 USING launch (OR run)
215 As with L<guestfs(3)>, you must first configure your guest by adding
216 disks, then launch it, then mount any disks you need, and finally
217 issue actions/commands. So the general order of the day is:
239 C<run> is a synonym for C<launch>. You must C<launch> (or C<run>)
240 your guest before mounting or performing any other commands.
242 The only exception is that if the C<-m> or C<--mount> option was
243 given, the guest is automatically run for you (simply because
244 guestfish can't mount the disks you asked for without doing this).
248 You can quote ordinary parameters using either single or double
251 add "file with a space.img"
257 A few commands require a list of strings to be passed. For these, use
258 a whitespace-separated list, enclosed in quotes. Strings containing whitespace
259 to be passed through must be enclosed in single quotes. A literal single quote
260 must be escaped with a backslash.
262 vgcreate VG "/dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1"
263 command "/bin/echo 'foo bar'"
264 command "/bin/echo \'foo\'"
266 =head1 WILDCARDS AND GLOBBING
268 Neither guestfish nor the underlying guestfs API performs
269 wildcard expansion (globbing) by default. So for example the
270 following will not do what you expect:
274 Assuming you don't have a directory literally called C</home/*>
275 then the above command will return an error.
277 To perform wildcard expansion, use the C<glob> command.
281 runs C<rm-rf> on each path that matches (ie. potentially running
282 the command many times), equivalent to:
288 C<glob> only works on simple guest paths and not on device names.
290 If you have several parameters, each containing a wildcard, then glob
291 will perform a cartesian product.
295 Any line which starts with a I<#> character is treated as a comment
296 and ignored. The I<#> can optionally be preceeded by whitespace,
297 but B<not> by a command. For example:
303 Blank lines are also ignored.
305 =head1 RUNNING COMMANDS LOCALLY
307 Any line which starts with a I<!> character is treated as a command
308 sent to the local shell (C</bin/sh> or whatever L<system(3)> uses).
312 tgz-out /remote local/remote-data.tar.gz
314 will create a directory C<local> on the host, and then export
315 the contents of C</remote> on the mounted filesystem to
316 C<local/remote-data.tar.gz>. (See C<tgz-out>).
320 Use C<command E<lt>spaceE<gt> | command> to pipe the output of the
321 first command (a guestfish command) to the second command (any host
322 command). For example:
324 cat /etc/passwd | awk -F: '$3 == 0 { print }'
326 (where C<cat> is the guestfish cat command, but C<awk> is the host awk
327 program). The above command would list all accounts in the guest
328 filesystem which have UID 0, ie. root accounts including backdoors.
331 hexdump /bin/ls | head
332 list-devices | tail -1
334 The space before the pipe symbol is required, any space after the pipe
335 symbol is optional. Everything after the pipe symbol is just passed
336 straight to the host shell, so it can contain redirections, globs and
337 anything else that makes sense on the host side.
339 To use a literal argument which begins with a pipe symbol, you have
344 =head1 HOME DIRECTORIES
346 If a parameter starts with the character C<~> then the tilde may be
347 expanded as a home directory path (either C<~> for the current user's
348 home directory, or C<~user> for another user).
350 Note that home directory expansion happens for users known I<on the
351 host>, not in the guest filesystem.
353 To use a literal argument which begins with a tilde, you have to quote
360 If a path is prefixed with C<win:> then you can use Windows-style
361 paths (with some limitations). The following commands are equivalent:
363 file /WINDOWS/system32/config/system.LOG
365 file win:/windows/system32/config/system.log
367 file win:\windows\system32\config\system.log
369 file WIN:C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\conFIG\SYSTEM.LOG
371 This syntax implicitly calls C<case-sensitive-path> (q.v.) so it also
372 handles case insensitivity like Windows would. This only works in
373 argument positions that expect a path.
375 =head1 EXIT ON ERROR BEHAVIOUR
377 By default, guestfish will ignore any errors when in interactive mode
378 (ie. taking commands from a human over a tty), and will exit on the
379 first error in non-interactive mode (scripts, commands given on the
382 If you prefix a command with a I<-> character, then that command will
383 not cause guestfish to exit, even if that (one) command returns an
386 =head1 REMOTE CONTROL GUESTFISH OVER A SOCKET
388 Guestfish can be remote-controlled over a socket. This is useful
389 particularly in shell scripts where you want to make several different
390 changes to a filesystem, but you don't want the overhead of starting
391 up a guestfish process each time.
393 Start a guestfish server process using:
395 eval `guestfish --listen`
397 and then send it commands by doing:
399 guestfish --remote cmd [...]
401 To cause the server to exit, send it the exit command:
403 guestfish --remote exit
405 Note that the server will normally exit if there is an error in a
406 command. You can change this in the usual way. See section I<EXIT ON
409 =head2 CONTROLLING MULTIPLE GUESTFISH PROCESSES
411 The C<eval> statement sets the environment variable C<$GUESTFISH_PID>,
412 which is how the C<--remote> option knows where to send the commands.
413 You can have several guestfish listener processes running using:
415 eval `guestfish --listen`
417 eval `guestfish --listen`
420 guestfish --remote=$pid1 cmd
421 guestfish --remote=$pid2 cmd
423 =head2 REMOTE CONTROL DETAILS
425 Remote control happens over a Unix domain socket called
426 C</tmp/.guestfish-$UID/socket-$PID>, where C<$UID> is the effective
427 user ID of the process, and C<$PID> is the process ID of the server.
429 Guestfish client and server versions must match exactly.
431 =head1 GUESTFISH COMMANDS
433 The commands in this section are guestfish convenience commands, in
434 other words, they are not part of the L<guestfs(3)> API.
436 =head2 alloc | allocate
440 This creates an empty (zeroed) file of the given size, and then adds
441 so it can be further examined.
443 For more advanced image creation, see L<qemu-img(1)> utility.
445 Size can be specified (where C<nn> means a number):
449 =item C<nn> or C<nn>K or C<nn>KB
451 number of kilobytes, eg: C<1440> = standard 3.5in floppy
453 =item C<nn>M or C<nn>MB
457 =item C<nn>G or C<nn>GB
461 =item C<nn>T or C<nn>TB
465 =item C<nn>P or C<nn>PB
469 =item C<nn>E or C<nn>EB
475 number of 512 byte sectors
483 This echos the parameters to the terminal.
485 =head2 edit | vi | emacs
489 This is used to edit a file. It downloads the file, edits it
490 locally using your editor, then uploads the result.
492 The editor is C<$EDITOR>. However if you use the alternate
493 commands C<vi> or C<emacs> you will get those corresponding
496 NOTE: This will not work reliably for large files
497 (> 2 MB) or binary files containing \0 bytes.
503 Expand wildcards in any paths in the args list, and run C<command>
504 repeatedly on each matching path.
506 See section WILDCARDS AND GLOBBING.
513 Without any parameter, this lists all commands. With a C<cmd>
514 parameter, this displays detailed help for a command.
520 Change the local directory, ie. the current directory of guestfish
523 Note that C<!cd> won't do what you might expect.
531 This is used to view a file.
533 The default viewer is C<$PAGER>. However if you use the alternate
534 command C<less> you will get the C<less> command specifically.
536 NOTE: This will not work reliably for large files
537 (> 2 MB) or binary files containing \0 bytes.
541 This exits guestfish. You can also use C<^D> key.
547 Close and reopen the libguestfs handle. It is not necessary to use
548 this normally, because the handle is closed properly when guestfish
549 exits. However this is occasionally useful for testing.
555 This creates an empty sparse file of the given size, and then adds
556 so it can be further examined.
558 In all respects it works the same as the C<alloc> command, except that
559 the image file is allocated sparsely, which means that disk blocks are
560 not assigned to the file until they are needed. Sparse disk files
561 only use space when written to, but they are slower and there is a
562 danger you could run out of real disk space during a write operation.
564 For more advanced image creation, see L<qemu-img(1)> utility.
566 Size can be specified (where C<nn> means a number):
570 =item C<nn> or C<nn>K or C<nn>KB
572 number of kilobytes, eg: C<1440> = standard 3.5in floppy
574 =item C<nn>M or C<nn>MB
578 =item C<nn>G or C<nn>GB
582 =item C<nn>T or C<nn>TB
586 =item C<nn>P or C<nn>PB
590 =item C<nn>E or C<nn>EB
596 number of 512 byte sectors
604 Run the command as usual, but print the elapsed time afterwards. This
605 can be useful for benchmarking operations.
611 =head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
617 The C<edit> command uses C<$EDITOR> as the editor. If not
622 Used with the I<--remote> option to specify the remote guestfish
623 process to control. See section I<REMOTE CONTROL GUESTFISH OVER A
628 If compiled with GNU readline support, then the command history
629 is saved in C<$HOME/.guestfish>
631 =item LIBGUESTFS_APPEND
633 Pass additional options to the guest kernel.
635 =item LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG
637 Set C<LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG=1> to enable verbose messages. This has the
638 same effect as using the B<-v> option.
640 =item LIBGUESTFS_MEMSIZE
642 Set the memory allocated to the qemu process, in megabytes. For
645 LIBGUESTFS_MEMSIZE=700
647 =item LIBGUESTFS_PATH
649 Set the path that guestfish uses to search for kernel and initrd.img.
650 See the discussion of paths in L<guestfs(3)>.
652 =item LIBGUESTFS_QEMU
654 Set the default qemu binary that libguestfs uses. If not set, then
655 the qemu which was found at compile time by the configure script is
658 =item LIBGUESTFS_TRACE
660 Set C<LIBGUESTFS_TRACE=1> to enable command traces.
664 The C<more> command uses C<$PAGER> as the pager. If not
665 set, it uses C<more>.
669 Location of temporary directory, defaults to C</tmp>.
671 If libguestfs was compiled to use the supermin appliance then each
672 handle will require rather a large amount of space in this directory
673 for short periods of time (~ 80 MB). You can use C<$TMPDIR> to
674 configure another directory to use in case C</tmp> is not large
681 guestfish returns I<0> if the commands completed without error, or
682 I<1> if there was an error.
687 L<http://libguestfs.org/>,
690 L<virt-list-filesystems(1)>,
697 Richard W.M. Jones (C<rjones at redhat dot com>)
701 Copyright (C) 2009 Red Hat Inc.
702 L<http://libguestfs.org/>
704 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
705 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
706 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
707 (at your option) any later version.
709 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
710 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
711 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
712 GNU General Public License for more details.
714 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
715 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
716 Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.