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.
192 =head1 RUNNING COMMANDS LOCALLY
194 Any line which starts with a I<!> character is treated as a command
195 sent to the local shell (C</bin/sh> or whatever L<system(3)> uses).
199 tgz-out /remote local/remote-data.tar.gz
201 will create a directory C<local> on the host, and then export
202 the contents of C</remote> on the mounted filesystem to
203 C<local/remote-data.tar.gz>. (See C<tgz-out>).
205 =head1 EXIT ON ERROR BEHAVIOUR
207 By default, guestfish will ignore any errors when in interactive mode
208 (ie. taking commands from a human over a tty), and will exit on the
209 first error in non-interactive mode (scripts, commands given on the
212 If you prefix a command with a I<-> character, then that command will
213 not cause guestfish to exit, even if that (one) command returns an
223 Without any parameter, this lists all commands. With a C<cmd>
224 parameter, this displays detailed help for a command.
228 This exits guestfish. You can also use C<^D> key.
230 =head2 alloc | allocate
234 This creates an empty (zeroed) file of the given size, and then adds
235 so it can be further examined.
237 For more advanced image creation, see L<qemu-img(1)> utility.
239 Size can be specified (where C<nn> means a number):
243 =item C<nn> or C<nn>K or C<nn>KB
245 number of kilobytes, eg: C<1440> = standard 3.5in floppy
247 =item C<nn>M or C<nn>MB
251 =item C<nn>G or C<nn>GB
257 number of 512 byte sectors
265 This echos the parameters to the terminal.
267 =head2 edit | vi | emacs
271 This is used to edit a file. It downloads the file, edits it
272 locally using your editor, then uploads the result.
274 The editor is C<$EDITOR>. However if you use the alternate
275 commands C<vi> or C<emacs> you will get those corresponding
278 NOTE: This will not work reliably for large files
279 (> 2 MB) or binary files containing \0 bytes.
283 =head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
287 =item LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG
289 Set C<LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG=1> to enable verbose messages. This has the
290 same effect as using the B<-v> option.
292 =item LIBGUESTFS_PATH
294 Set the path that guestfish uses to search for kernel and initrd.img.
295 See the discussion of paths in L<guestfs(3)>.
297 =item LIBGUESTFS_QEMU
299 Set the default qemu binary that libguestfs uses. If not set, then
300 the qemu which was found at compile time by the configure script is
303 =item LIBGUESTFS_APPEND
305 Pass additional options to the guest kernel.
309 If compiled with GNU readline support, then the command history
310 is saved in C<$HOME/.guestfish>
314 The C<edit> command uses C<$EDITOR> as the editor. If not
321 guestfish returns I<0> if the commands completed without error, or
322 I<1> if there was an error.
327 L<http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/libguestfs>.
331 Richard W.M. Jones (C<rjones at redhat dot com>)
335 Copyright (C) 2009 Red Hat Inc.
336 L<http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/libguestfs>
338 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
339 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
340 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
341 (at your option) any later version.
343 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
344 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
345 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
346 GNU General Public License for more details.
348 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
349 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
350 Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.