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).
166 Without any parameter, this lists all commands. With a C<cmd>
167 parameter, this displays detailed help for a command.
171 This exits guestfish. You can also use C<^D> key.
173 =head2 add | drive | add-drive
177 This adds a block device to be examined or modified.
179 =head2 cdrom | add-cdrom
183 This adds a CD-ROM device to be examined.
185 =head2 alloc | allocate
189 This creates an empty (zeroed) file of the given size, and then adds
190 so it can be further examined.
192 For more advanced image creation, see L<qemu-img(1)> utility.
194 Size can be specified (where C<nn> means a number):
200 number of kilobytes, eg: C<1440> = standard 3.5in floppy
202 =item C<nn>K or C<nn>KB
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 Launch the guest so that you can issue other commands (see below).
226 =head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
230 =item LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG
232 Set C<LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG=1> to enable verbose messages. This has the
233 same effect as using the B<-v> option.
235 =item LIBGUESTFS_PATH
237 Set the path that guestfish uses to search for kernel and initrd.img.
238 See the discussion of paths in L<guestfs(3)>.
245 L<http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/libguestfs>.
249 Richard W.M. Jones (C<rjones at redhat dot com>)
253 Copyright (C) 2009 Red Hat Inc.
254 L<http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/libguestfs>
256 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
257 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
258 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
259 (at your option) any later version.
261 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
262 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
263 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
264 GNU General Public License for more details.
266 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
267 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
268 Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.