-libguestfs is a library for accessing and modifying guest disk images.
+Libguestfs is a library for accessing and modifying guest disk images.
Amongst the things this is good for: making batch configuration
changes to guests, getting disk used/free statistics (see also:
virt-df), migrating between virtualization systems (see also:
clones, cloning guests and changing registry/UUID/hostname info, and
much else besides.
-libguestfs uses Linux kernel and qemu code, and can access any type of
+Libguestfs uses Linux kernel and qemu code, and can access any type of
guest filesystem that Linux and qemu can, including but not limited
to: ext2/3/4, btrfs, FAT and NTFS, LVM, many different disk partition
schemes, qcow, qcow2, vmdk.
-libguestfs provides ways to enumerate guest storage (eg. partitions,
+Libguestfs provides ways to enumerate guest storage (eg. partitions,
LVs, what filesystem is in each LV, etc.). It can also run commands
-in the context of the guest. Also you can mount guest filesystems on
-the host (requires root privs and NFS).
+in the context of the guest. Also you can access filesystems over FTP.
-libguestfs is a library that can be linked with C and C++ management
+Libguestfs is a library that can be linked with C and C++ management
programs (or management programs written in other languages, if people
contribute the language bindings). You can also use it from shell
scripts or the command line.
-libguestfs was written by Richard W.M. Jones (rjones@redhat.com).
+Libguestfs was written by Richard W.M. Jones (rjones@redhat.com).
For discussion please use the fedora-virt mailing list:
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-virt
- XDR, rpcgen
+- Augeas (http://augeas.net/)
+
+- perldoc (pod2man, pod2text) to generate the manual pages and
+other documentation.
+
+- (Optional) OCaml if you want to modify the code or rebuild certain
+generated files, and also to build the OCaml bindings
+
- (Optional) local Fedora mirror
+- (Optional) Perl if you want to build the perl bindings
+
Running ./configure will check you have all the requirements installed
on your machine.
make install
+
Notes on cross-architecture support
----------------------------------------------------------------------
At the moment we basically don't support cross-architecture or
32-on-64. This limits what is possible for some guests. Filesystem
-operations and NFS export will work fine, but running commands in
+operations and FTP export will work fine, but running commands in
guests may not be possible.
To enable this requires work for cross-architecture and 32-on-64
-support in febootstrap.
+support in febootstrap, fakeroot and fakechroot.
The daemon/ directory contains its own configure script. This is so
that in future we will be able to cross-compile the daemon.
+Mirroring tip
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Having a local Fedora mirror makes a massive difference to the time it
+takes to build and rebuild initramfs images.
+
+Failing that, use squid to cache yum downloads, but read this first:
+https://lists.dulug.duke.edu/pipermail/yum/2006-August/009041.html
+(In brief, because yum chooses random mirrors each time, squid doesn't
+work very well with default yum configuration. To get around this,
+choose a Fedora mirror which is close to you, set this with
+'./configure --with-mirror=[...]', and then proxy the whole lot
+through squid by setting http_proxy environment variable).
+
+You will also need to substantially increase the squid configuration
+limits:
+http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Using_Mock_to_test_package_builds#Using_Squid_to_Speed_Up_Mock_package_downloads
+
+IntelligentMirror is another possibility, although I couldn't get it
+to work for me.
+
+
Copyright and license information
----------------------------------------------------------------------