=encoding utf8 =head1 NAME guestfish - the libguestfs Filesystem Interactive SHell =head1 SYNOPSIS guestfish [--options] [commands] guestfish guestfish -a disk.img guestfish -a disk.img -m dev[:mountpoint] guestfish -d libvirt-domain guestfish -a disk.img -i guestfish -d libvirt-domain -i =head1 WARNING Using guestfish in read/write mode on live virtual machines can be dangerous, potentially causing disk corruption. Use the I<--ro> (read-only) option to use guestfish safely if the disk image or virtual machine might be live. =head1 EXAMPLES =head2 As an interactive shell $ guestfish Welcome to guestfish, the libguestfs filesystem interactive shell for editing virtual machine filesystems. Type: 'help' for a list of commands 'man' to read the manual 'quit' to quit the shell > man =head2 From shell scripts Create a new C file in a guest: guestfish <<_EOF_ add disk.img run mount /dev/vg_guest/lv_root / write /etc/motd "Welcome, new users" _EOF_ List the LVM logical volumes in a guest: guestfish -a disk.img --ro <<_EOF_ run lvs _EOF_ =head2 On one command line Update C in a guest: guestfish \ add disk.img : run : mount /dev/vg_guest/lv_root / : \ write /etc/resolv.conf "nameserver 1.2.3.4" Edit C interactively: guestfish --add disk.img \ --mount /dev/vg_guest/lv_root \ --mount /dev/sda1:/boot \ edit /boot/grub/grub.conf =head2 Mount disks automatically Use the I<-i> option to automatically mount the disks from a virtual machine: guestfish --ro -a disk.img -i cat /etc/group guestfish --ro -d libvirt-domain -i cat /etc/group =head2 As a script interpreter Create a 100MB disk containing an ext2-formatted partition: #!/usr/bin/guestfish -f sparse test1.img 100M run part-disk /dev/sda mbr mkfs ext2 /dev/sda1 =head2 Start with a prepared disk An alternate way to create a 100MB disk called C containing a single ext2-formatted partition: guestfish -N fs To list what is available do: guestfish -N help | less =head2 Remote control eval `guestfish --listen --ro` guestfish --remote add disk.img guestfish --remote run guestfish --remote lvs =head1 DESCRIPTION Guestfish is a shell and command-line tool for examining and modifying virtual machine filesystems. It uses libguestfs and exposes all of the functionality of the guestfs API, see L. Guestfish gives you structured access to the libguestfs API, from shell scripts or the command line or interactively. If you want to rescue a broken virtual machine image, you should look at the L command. =head1 OPTIONS =over 4 =item B<--help> Displays general help on options. =item B<-h> | B<--cmd-help> Lists all available guestfish commands. =item B<-h cmd> | B<--cmd-help cmd> Displays detailed help on a single command C. =item B<-a image> | B<--add image> Add a block device or virtual machine image to the shell. =item B<-c URI> | B<--connect URI> When used in conjunction with the I<-d> option, this specifies the libvirt URI to use. The default is to use the default libvirt connection. =item B<-d libvirt-domain> | B<--domain libvirt-domain> Add disks from the named libvirt domain. If the I<--ro> option is also used, then any libvirt domain can be used. However in write mode, only libvirt domains which are shut down can be named here. =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. To write pure guestfish scripts, use: #!/usr/bin/guestfish -f =item B<-i> | B<--inspector> Using L code, inspect the disks looking for an operating system and mount filesystems as they would be mounted on the real virtual machine. Typical usage is either: guestfish -d myguest -i (for an inactive libvirt domain called I), or: guestfish --ro -d myguest -i (for active domains, readonly), or specify the block device directly: guestfish -a /dev/Guests/MyGuest -i Note that the command line syntax changed slightly over older versions of guestfish. You can still use the old syntax: guestfish [--ro] -i disk.img guestfish [--ro] -i libvirt-domain =item B<--keys-from-stdin> Read key or passphrase parameters from stdin. The default is to try to read passphrases from the user by opening C. =item B<--listen> Fork into the background and listen for remote commands. See section L below. =item B<-m dev[:mountpoint]> | B<--mount dev[:mountpoint]> Mount the named partition or logical volume on the given mountpoint. If the mountpoint is omitted, it defaults to C. You have to mount something on C before most commands will work. If any I<-m> or I<--mount> options are given, the guest is automatically launched. If you don't know what filesystems a disk image contains, you can either run guestfish without this option, then list the partitions and LVs available (see L and L commands), or you can use the L program. =item B<-n> | B<--no-sync> Disable autosync. This is enabled by default. See the discussion of autosync in the L manpage. =item B<-N type> | B<--new type> | B<-N help> Prepare a fresh disk image formatted as "type". This is an alternative to the I<-a> option: whereas I<-a> adds an existing disk, I<-N> creates a preformatted disk with a filesystem and adds it. See L below. =item B<--progress-bars> Enable progress bars, even when guestfish is used non-interactively. Progress bars are enabled by default when guestfish is used as an interactive shell. =item B<--no-progress-bars> Disable progress bars. =item B<--remote[=pid]> Send remote commands to C<$GUESTFISH_PID> or C. See section L below. =item B<-r> | B<--ro> This changes the I<-a> and I<-m> options so that disks are added and mounts are done read-only (see L). 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. Note that prepared disk images created with I<-N> are not affected by the I<--ro> option. =item B<--selinux> Enable SELinux support for the guest. See L. =item B<-v> | B<--verbose> 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 Any additional (non-option) arguments are treated as commands to execute. Commands to execute should be separated by a colon (C<:>), where the colon is a separate parameter. Thus: guestfish cmd [args...] : cmd [args...] : cmd [args...] ... If there are no additional arguments, then we enter a shell, either an interactive shell with a prompt (if the input is a terminal) or a non-interactive shell. In either command line mode or non-interactive shell, the first command that gives an error causes the whole shell to exit. In interactive mode (with a prompt) if a command fails, you can continue to enter commands. =head1 USING launch (OR run) As with L, you must first configure your guest by adding disks, then launch it, then mount any disks you need, and finally issue actions/commands. So the general order of the day is: =over 4 =item * add or -a/--add =item * launch (aka run) =item * mount or -m/--mount =item * any other commands =back C is a synonym for C. You must C (or C) your guest before mounting or performing any other commands. The only exception is that if the I<-m> or I<--mount> option was given, the guest is automatically run for you (simply because guestfish can't mount the disks you asked for without doing this). =head1 QUOTING You can quote ordinary parameters using either single or double quotes. For example: add "file with a space.img" rm '/file name' rm '/"' A few commands require a list of strings to be passed. For these, use a whitespace-separated list, enclosed in quotes. Strings containing whitespace to be passed through must be enclosed in single quotes. A literal single quote must be escaped with a backslash. vgcreate VG "/dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1" command "/bin/echo 'foo bar'" command "/bin/echo \'foo\'" =head1 NUMBERS This section applies to all commands which can take integers as parameters. =head2 SIZE SUFFIX When the command takes a parameter measured in bytes, you can use one of the following suffixes to specify kilobytes, megabytes and larger sizes: =over 4 =item B or B or B The size in kilobytes (multiplied by 1024). =item B The size in SI 1000 byte units. =item B or B The size in megabytes (multiplied by 1048576). =item B The size in SI 1000000 byte units. =item B or B The size in gigabytes (multiplied by 2**30). =item B The size in SI 10**9 byte units. =item B or B The size in terabytes (multiplied by 2**40). =item B The size in SI 10**12 byte units. =item B

or B The size in petabytes (multiplied by 2**50). =item B The size in SI 10**15 byte units. =item B or B The size in exabytes (multiplied by 2**60). =item B The size in SI 10**18 byte units. =item B or B The size in zettabytes (multiplied by 2**70). =item B The size in SI 10**21 byte units. =item B or B The size in yottabytes (multiplied by 2**80). =item B The size in SI 10**24 byte units. =back For example: truncate-size /file 1G would truncate the file to 1 gigabyte. Be careful because a few commands take sizes in kilobytes or megabytes (eg. the parameter to L is specified in megabytes already). Adding a suffix will probably not do what you expect. =head2 OCTAL AND HEXADECIMAL NUMBERS For specifying the radix (base) use the C convention: C<0> to prefix an octal number or C<0x> to prefix a hexadecimal number. For example: 1234 decimal number 1234 02322 octal number, equivalent to decimal 1234 0x4d2 hexadecimal number, equivalent to decimal 1234 When using the C command, you almost always want to specify an octal number for the mode, and you must prefix it with C<0> (unlike the Unix L program): chmod 0777 /public # OK chmod 777 /public # WRONG! This is mode 777 decimal = 01411 octal. Commands that return numbers usually print them in decimal, but some commands print numbers in other radices (eg. C prints the mode in octal, preceeded by C<0>). =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 then the above command will return an error. To perform wildcard expansion, use the C command. glob rm-rf /home/* runs C 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 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 and ignored. The I<#> can optionally be preceeded by whitespace, but B by a command. For example: # this is a comment # this is a comment foo # NOT a comment Blank lines are also ignored. =head1 RUNNING COMMANDS LOCALLY Any line which starts with a I character is treated as a command sent to the local shell (C or whatever L uses). For example: !mkdir local tgz-out /remote local/remote-data.tar.gz will create a directory C on the host, and then export the contents of C on the mounted filesystem to C. (See C). To change the local directory, use the C command. C will have no effect, due to the way that subprocesses work in Unix. =head1 PIPES Use CspaceE | command> to pipe the output of the first command (a guestfish command) to the second command (any host command). For example: cat /etc/passwd | awk -F: '$3 == 0 { print }' (where C is the guestfish cat command, but C 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: hexdump /bin/ls | head list-devices | tail -1 tgz-out / - | tar ztf - 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 HOME DIRECTORIES If a parameter starts with the character C<~> then the tilde may be expanded as a home directory path (either C<~> for the current user's home directory, or C<~user> for another user). Note that home directory expansion happens for users known I, not in the guest filesystem. To use a literal argument which begins with a tilde, you have to quote it, eg: echo "~" =head1 ENCRYPTED DISKS Libguestfs has some support for Linux guests encrypted according to the Linux Unified Key Setup (LUKS) standard, which includes nearly all whole disk encryption systems used by modern Linux guests. Currently only LVM-on-LUKS is supported. Identify encrypted block devices and partitions using L: > vfs-type /dev/sda2 crypto_LUKS Then open those devices using L. This creates a device-mapper device called C. > luks-open /dev/sda2 luksdev Enter key or passphrase ("key"): Finally you have to tell LVM to scan for volume groups on the newly created mapper device: > vgscan > vg-activate-all true The logical volume(s) can now be mounted in the usual way. Before closing a LUKS device you must unmount any logical volumes on it and deactivate the volume groups by calling C on each one. Then you can close the mapper device: > vg-activate false /dev/VG > luks-close /dev/mapper/luksdev =head1 WINDOWS PATHS If a path is prefixed with C then you can use Windows-style paths (with some limitations). The following commands are equivalent: file /WINDOWS/system32/config/system.LOG file win:/windows/system32/config/system.log file win:\windows\system32\config\system.log file WIN:C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\conFIG\SYSTEM.LOG This syntax implicitly calls C (q.v.) so it also handles case insensitivity like Windows would. This only works in argument positions that expect a path. =head1 UPLOADING AND DOWNLOADING FILES For commands such as C, C, C, C and others which upload from or download to a local file, you can use the special filename C<-> to mean "from stdin" or "to stdout". For example: upload - /foo reads stdin and creates from that a file C in the disk image, and: tar-out /etc - | tar tf - writes the tarball to stdout and then pipes that into the external "tar" command (see L). When using C<-> to read from stdin, the input is read up to the end of stdin. You can also use a special "heredoc"-like syntax to read up to some arbitrary end marker: upload -<. The end marker must appear on a line of its own, without any preceeding or following characters (not even spaces). Note that the C<-EE> syntax only applies to parameters used to upload local files (so-called "FileIn" parameters in the generator). =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 REMOTE CONTROL GUESTFISH OVER A SOCKET Guestfish can be remote-controlled over a socket. This is useful particularly in shell scripts where you want to make several different changes to a filesystem, but you don't want the overhead of starting up a guestfish process each time. Start a guestfish server process using: eval `guestfish --listen` and then send it commands by doing: guestfish --remote cmd [...] To cause the server to exit, send it the exit command: guestfish --remote exit Note that the server will normally exit if there is an error in a command. You can change this in the usual way. See section L. =head2 CONTROLLING MULTIPLE GUESTFISH PROCESSES The C statement sets the environment variable C<$GUESTFISH_PID>, which is how the I<--remote> option knows where to send the commands. You can have several guestfish listener processes running using: eval `guestfish --listen` pid1=$GUESTFISH_PID eval `guestfish --listen` pid2=$GUESTFISH_PID ... guestfish --remote=$pid1 cmd guestfish --remote=$pid2 cmd =head2 REMOTE CONTROL DETAILS Remote control happens over a Unix domain socket called C, where C<$UID> is the effective user ID of the process, and C<$PID> is the process ID of the server. Guestfish client and server versions must match exactly. =head1 PREPARED DISK IMAGES Use the I<-N type> or I<--new type> parameter to select one of a set of preformatted disk images that guestfish can make for you to save typing. This is particularly useful for testing purposes. This option is used instead of the I<-a> option, and like I<-a> can appear multiple times (and can be mixed with I<-a>). The new disk is called C for the first I<-N>, C for the second and so on. Existing files in the current directory are I. The type briefly describes how the disk should be sized, partitioned, how filesystem(s) should be created, and how content should be added. Optionally the type can be followed by extra parameters, separated by C<:> (colon) characters. For example, I<-N fs> creates a default 100MB, sparsely-allocated disk, containing a single partition, with the partition formatted as ext2. I<-N fs:ext4:1G> is the same, but for an ext4 filesystem on a 1GB disk instead. To list the available types and any extra parameters they take, run: guestfish -N help | less Note that the prepared filesystem is not mounted. You would usually have to use the C command or add the I<-m /dev/sda1> option. If any I<-N> or I<--new> options are given, the guest is automatically launched. =head2 EXAMPLES Create a 100MB disk with an ext4-formatted partition: guestfish -N fs:ext4 Create a 32MB disk with a VFAT-formatted partition, and mount it: guestfish -N fs:vfat:32M -m /dev/sda1 Create a blank 200MB disk: guestfish -N disk:200M =head1 PROGRESS BARS Some (not all) long-running commands send progress notification messages as they are running. Guestfish turns these messages into progress bars. When a command that supports progress bars takes longer than two seconds to run, and if progress bars are enabled, then you will see one appearing below the command: > copy-size /large-file /another-file 2048M / 10% [#####-----------------------------------------] 00:30 The spinner on the left hand side moves round once for every progress notification received from the backend. This is a (reasonably) golden assurance that the command is "doing something" even if the progress bar is not moving, because the command is able to send the progress notifications. When the bar reaches 100% and the command finishes, the spinner disappears. Progress bars are enabled by default when guestfish is used interactively. You can enable them even for non-interactive modes using I<--progress-bars>, and you can disable them completely using I<--no-progress-bars>. =head1 GUESTFISH COMMANDS The commands in this section are guestfish convenience commands, in other words, they are not part of the L API. =head2 alloc | allocate alloc filename size This creates an empty (zeroed) file of the given size, and then adds so it can be further examined. For more advanced image creation, see L utility. Size can be specified using standard suffixes, eg. C<1M>. =head2 echo echo [params ...] This echos the parameters to the terminal. =head2 edit | vi | emacs edit filename This is used to edit a file. It downloads the file, edits it locally using your editor, then uploads the result. The editor is C<$EDITOR>. However if you use the alternate commands C or C you will get those corresponding editors. =head2 glob glob command args... Expand wildcards in any paths in the args list, and run C repeatedly on each matching path. See section WILDCARDS AND GLOBBING. =head2 help help help cmd Without any parameter, this lists all commands. With a C parameter, this displays detailed help for a command. =head2 lcd lcd directory Change the local directory, ie. the current directory of guestfish itself. Note that C won't do what you might expect. =head2 man | manual man Opens the manual page for guestfish. =head2 more | less more filename less filename This is used to view a file. The default viewer is C<$PAGER>. However if you use the alternate command C you will get the C command specifically. =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 sparse sparse filename size This creates an empty sparse file of the given size, and then adds so it can be further examined. In all respects it works the same as the C command, except that the image file is allocated sparsely, which means that disk blocks are not assigned to the file until they are needed. Sparse disk files only use space when written to, but they are slower and there is a danger you could run out of real disk space during a write operation. For more advanced image creation, see L utility. Size can be specified using standard suffixes, eg. C<1M>. =head2 supported supported This command returns a list of the optional groups known to the daemon, and indicates which ones are supported by this build of the libguestfs appliance. See also L. =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 EXIT CODE guestfish returns 0 if the commands completed without error, or 1 if there was an error. =head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES =over 4 =item EDITOR The C command uses C<$EDITOR> as the editor. If not set, it uses C. =item GUESTFISH_PID Used with the I<--remote> option to specify the remote guestfish process to control. See section L. =item HOME If compiled with GNU readline support, various files in the home directory can be used. See L. =item LIBGUESTFS_APPEND Pass additional options to the guest kernel. =item LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG Set C to enable verbose messages. This has the same effect as using the B<-v> option. =item LIBGUESTFS_MEMSIZE Set the memory allocated to the qemu process, in megabytes. For example: LIBGUESTFS_MEMSIZE=700 =item LIBGUESTFS_PATH Set the path that guestfish uses to search for kernel and initrd.img. See the discussion of paths in L. =item LIBGUESTFS_QEMU Set the default qemu binary that libguestfs uses. If not set, then the qemu which was found at compile time by the configure script is used. =item LIBGUESTFS_TRACE Set C to enable command traces. =item PAGER The C command uses C<$PAGER> as the pager. If not set, it uses C. =item TMPDIR Location of temporary directory, defaults to C. If libguestfs was compiled to use the supermin appliance then each handle will require rather a large amount of space in this directory for short periods of time (~ 80 MB). You can use C<$TMPDIR> to configure another directory to use in case C is not large enough. =back =head1 FILES =over 4 =item $HOME/.guestfish If compiled with GNU readline support, then the command history is saved in this file. =item $HOME/.inputrc =item /etc/inputrc If compiled with GNU readline support, then these files can be used to configure readline. For further information, please see L. To write rules which only apply to guestfish, use: $if guestfish ... $endif Variables that you can set in inputrc that change the behaviour of guestfish in useful ways include: =over 4 =item completion-ignore-case (default: on) By default, guestfish will ignore case when tab-completing paths on the disk. Use: set completion-ignore-case off to make guestfish case sensitive. =back =item test1.img =item test2.img (etc) When using the C<-N> or C<--new> option, the prepared disk or filesystem will be created in the file C in the current directory. The second use of C<-N> will use C and so on. Any existing file with the same name will be overwritten. =back =head1 SEE ALSO L, L, L, L, L, L, L, L, L, L, L, L, L. =head1 AUTHORS Richard W.M. Jones (C) =head1 COPYRIGHT Copyright (C) 2009-2010 Red Hat Inc. L 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 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.