guestfish [--options] [commands]
+ guestfish -i libvirt-domain
+
+ guestfish -i disk-image(s)
+
=head1 EXAMPLES
=head2 From shell scripts
guestfish --add disk.img \
--mount /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 \
--mount /dev/sda1:/boot \
- rm /boot/grub/menu.lst : \
- sync : exit
+ rm /boot/grub/menu.lst
=head2 As an interactive shell
$ guestfish
-
+
Welcome to guestfish, the libguestfs filesystem interactive shell for
editing virtual machine filesystems.
-
+
Type: 'help' for help with commands
'quit' to quit the shell
-
+
><fs> help
+=head2 As a script interpreter
+
+ #!/usr/bin/guestfish -f
+ alloc /tmp/output.img 10M
+ run
+ sfdisk /dev/sda 0 0 0 ,
+ mkfs ext2 /dev/sda1
+
=head1 DESCRIPTION
Guestfish is a shell and command-line tool for examining and modifying
Add a block device or virtual machine image to the shell.
+=item B<-D> | B<--no-dest-paths>
+
+Don't tab-complete paths on the guest filesystem. It is useful to be
+able to hit the tab key to complete paths on the guest filesystem, but
+this causes extra "hidden" guestfs calls to be made, so this option is
+here to allow this feature to be disabled.
+
+=item B<-f file> | B<--file file>
+
+Read commands from C<file>. To write pure guestfish
+scripts, use:
+
+ #!/usr/bin/guestfish -f
+
+=item B<-i> | B<--inspector>
+
+Run virt-inspector on the named libvirt domain or list of disk
+images. If virt-inspector is available and if it can identify
+the domain or disk images, then partitions will be mounted
+correctly at start-up.
+
+Typical usage is either:
+
+ guestfish -i myguest
+
+(for an inactive libvirt domain called I<myguest>), or:
+
+ guestfish --ro -i myguest
+
+(for active domains, readonly), or specify the block device directly:
+
+ guestfish -i /dev/Guests/MyGuest
+
+You cannot use I<-a> or I<-m> in conjunction with this option, and
+options other than I<--ro> might not behave correctly.
+
+See also: L<virt-inspector(1)>.
+
=item B<-m dev[:mountpoint]> | B<--mount dev[:mountpoint]>
Mount the named partition or logical volume on the given mountpoint.
Enable very verbose messages. This is particularly useful if you find
a bug.
+=item B<-V> | B<--version>
+
+Display the guestfish / libguestfs version number and exit.
+
+=item B<-x>
+
+Echo each command before executing it.
+
=back
=head1 COMMANDS ON COMMAND LINE
vgcreate VG "/dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1"
+=head1 WILDCARDS AND GLOBBING
+
+Neither guestfish nor the underlying guestfs API performs
+wildcard expansion (globbing) by default. So for example the
+following will not do what you expect:
+
+ rm-rf /home/*
+
+Assuming you don't have a directory literally called C</home/*>
+then the above command will return an error.
+
+To perform wildcard expansion, use the C<glob> command.
+
+ glob rm-rf /home/*
+
+runs C<rm-rf> on each path that matches (ie. potentially running
+the command many times), equivalent to:
+
+ rm-rf /home/jim
+ rm-rf /home/joe
+ rm-rf /home/mary
+
+C<glob> only works on simple guest paths and not on device names.
+
+If you have several parameters, each containing a wildcard, then glob
+will perform a cartesian product.
+
=head1 COMMENTS
Any line which starts with a I<#> character is treated as a comment
the contents of C</remote> on the mounted filesystem to
C<local/remote-data.tar.gz>. (See C<tgz-out>).
-=head1 COMMANDS
+=head1 PIPES
-=head2 help
+Use C<command E<lt>spaceE<gt> | command> to pipe the output of the
+first command (a guestfish command) to the second command (any host
+command). For example:
- help
- help cmd
+ cat /etc/passwd | awk -F: '$3 == 0 { print }'
-Without any parameter, this lists all commands. With a C<cmd>
-parameter, this displays detailed help for a command.
+(where C<cat> is the guestfish cat command, but C<awk> is the host awk
+program). The above command would list all accounts in the guest
+filesystem which have UID 0, ie. root accounts including backdoors.
+Other examples:
-=head2 quit | exit
+ hexdump /bin/ls | head
+ list-devices | tail -1
-This exits guestfish. You can also use C<^D> key.
+The space before the pipe symbol is required, any space after the pipe
+symbol is optional. Everything after the pipe symbol is just passed
+straight to the host shell, so it can contain redirections, globs and
+anything else that makes sense on the host side.
+
+To use a literal argument which begins with a pipe symbol, you have
+to quote it, eg:
+
+ echo "|"
+
+=head1 EXIT ON ERROR BEHAVIOUR
+
+By default, guestfish will ignore any errors when in interactive mode
+(ie. taking commands from a human over a tty), and will exit on the
+first error in non-interactive mode (scripts, commands given on the
+command line).
+
+If you prefix a command with a I<-> character, then that command will
+not cause guestfish to exit, even if that (one) command returns an
+error.
+
+=head1 GUESTFISH COMMANDS
+
+The commands in this section are guestfish convenience commands, in
+other words, they are not part of the L<guestfs(3)> API.
=head2 alloc | allocate
NOTE: This will not work reliably for large files
(> 2 MB) or binary files containing \0 bytes.
+=head2 glob
+
+ glob command args...
+
+Expand wildcards in any paths in the args list, and run C<command>
+repeatedly on each matching path.
+
+See section WILDCARDS AND GLOBBING.
+
+=head2 help
+
+ help
+ help cmd
+
+Without any parameter, this lists all commands. With a C<cmd>
+parameter, this displays detailed help for a command.
+
+=head2 lcd
+
+ lcd directory
+
+Change the local directory, ie. the current directory of guestfish
+itself.
+
+Note that C<!cd> won't do what you might expect.
+
+=head2 more | less
+
+ more filename
+
+ less filename
+
+This is used to view a file.
+
+The default viewer is C<$PAGER>. However if you use the alternate
+command C<less> you will get the C<less> command specifically.
+
+NOTE: This will not work reliably for large files
+(> 2 MB) or binary files containing \0 bytes.
+
+=head2 quit | exit
+
+This exits guestfish. You can also use C<^D> key.
+
+=head2 reopen
+
+ reopen
+
+Close and reopen the libguestfs handle. It is not necessary to use
+this normally, because the handle is closed properly when guestfish
+exits. However this is occasionally useful for testing.
+
+=head2 time
+
+ time command args...
+
+Run the command as usual, but print the elapsed time afterwards. This
+can be useful for benchmarking operations.
+
+=head1 COMMANDS
+
@ACTIONS@
=head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
=over 4
+=item EDITOR
+
+The C<edit> command uses C<$EDITOR> as the editor. If not
+set, it uses C<vi>.
+
+=item HOME
+
+If compiled with GNU readline support, then the command history
+is saved in C<$HOME/.guestfish>
+
+=item LIBGUESTFS_APPEND
+
+Pass additional options to the guest kernel.
+
=item LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG
Set C<LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG=1> to enable verbose messages. This has the
same effect as using the B<-v> option.
+=item LIBGUESTFS_MEMSIZE
+
+Set the memory allocated to the qemu process, in megabytes. For
+example:
+
+ LIBGUESTFS_MEMSIZE=700
+
=item LIBGUESTFS_PATH
Set the path that guestfish uses to search for kernel and initrd.img.
the qemu which was found at compile time by the configure script is
used.
-=item HOME
+=item PAGER
-If compiled with GNU readline support, then the command history
-is saved in C<$HOME/.guestfish>
+The C<more> command uses C<$PAGER> as the pager. If not
+set, it uses C<more>.
-=item EDITOR
+=back
-The C<edit> command uses C<$EDITOR> as the editor. If not
-set, it uses C<vi>.
+=head1 EXIT CODE
-=back
+guestfish returns I<0> if the commands completed without error, or
+I<1> if there was an error.
=head1 SEE ALSO
L<guestfs(3)>,
-L<http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/libguestfs>.
+L<http://libguestfs.org/>.
=head1 AUTHORS
=head1 COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2009 Red Hat Inc.
-L<http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/libguestfs>
+L<http://libguestfs.org/>
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by