virt-rescue [--options] disk.img [disk.img ...]
+=head1 WARNING
+
+You must I<not> use C<virt-rescue> on live virtual machines. Doing so
+will probably result in disk corruption in the VM. C<virt-rescue>
+tries to stop you from doing this, but doesn't catch all cases.
+
+However if you use the I<--ro> (read only) option, then you can attach
+a shell to a live virtual machine, but the results might be strange or
+inconsistent at times (but you won't get disk corruption).
+
=head1 DESCRIPTION
virt-rescue gives you a rescue shell and some simple recovery tools
which you can use on a virtual machine disk image.
After running virt-rescue, what you see under C</> is the recovery
-appliance. You must mount the virtual machine's filesystems by hand,
-eg:
+appliance.
- # lvs
+You must mount the virtual machine's filesystems by hand. There
+is a directory C</sysroot> where you can mount filesystems. For
+example:
+
+ ><rescue> lvs
LV VG Attr LSize Origin Snap% Move Log Copy% Convert
lv_root vg_f11x64 -wi-a- 8.83G
lv_swap vg_f11x64 -wi-a- 992.00M
- # mount /dev/vg_f11x64/lv_root /sysroot
- # ls /sysroot
-
-B<Note> that the virtual machine must not be powered on when you use
-this tool. Doing so will probably result in disk corruption in the
-VM. However if you use the I<--ro> (read only) option, then you can
-attach a shell to a running machine, but the results might be strange
-or inconsistent.
+ ><rescue> mount /dev/vg_f11x64/lv_root /sysroot
+ ><rescue> ls /sysroot
This tool is just designed for quick interactive hacking on a virtual
machine. For more structured access to a virtual machine disk image,
Open the image read-only.
+The option must always be used if the disk image or virtual machine
+might be running, and is generally recommended in cases where you
+don't need write access to the disk.
+
=back
=cut