accommodate leading "+" in git submodule output

[libguestfs.git] / README

diff --git a/README b/README
index 92bfc07..0877775 100644 (file)
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -19,10 +19,11 @@ Libguestfs is a library that can be linked with C and C++ management
 programs (or management programs written in OCaml, Perl, Python, Ruby, Java
 or Haskell).  You can also use it from shell scripts or the command line.
 
 programs (or management programs written in OCaml, Perl, Python, Ruby, Java
 or Haskell).  You can also use it from shell scripts or the command line.
 

-Libguestfs was written by Richard W.M. Jones (rjones@redhat.com).
-For discussion please use the fedora-virt mailing list:
+Libguestfs was written by Richard W.M. Jones (rjones@redhat.com) and
+hacked on by lots of other people.  For discussion, development,
+patches, etc. please use the mailing list:

 
 

-  https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-virt
+  http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/libguestfs

 
 
 Home page
 
 
 Home page


@@ -37,7 +38,7 @@ Requirements
 - recent QEMU >= 0.10 with vmchannel support
   http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2009-02/msg01042.html
 
 - recent QEMU >= 0.10 with vmchannel support
   http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2009-02/msg01042.html
 

-- febootstrap >= 2.0
+- febootstrap >= 2.3

 
 - fakeroot
 
 
 - fakeroot
 


@@ -47,6 +48,12 @@ Requirements
 
 - squashfs-tools (mksquashfs only)
 
 
 - squashfs-tools (mksquashfs only)
 

+- genisoimage / mkisofs
+
+- libxml2
+
+- (Optional) FUSE to build the FUSE module
+

 - (Optional) Augeas (http://augeas.net/)
 
 - perldoc (pod2man, pod2text) to generate the manual pages and
 - (Optional) Augeas (http://augeas.net/)
 
 - perldoc (pod2man, pod2text) to generate the manual pages and


@@ -57,9 +64,14 @@ Requirements
 - (Optional) 'reged' program from chntpw to decode Windows registry
   entries (http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/)
 
 - (Optional) 'reged' program from chntpw to decode Windows registry
   entries (http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/)
 

+- (Optional) xmllint to validate virt-inspector RELAX NG schema
+

 - (Optional) OCaml if you want to rebuild the generated files, and
   also to build the OCaml bindings
 
 - (Optional) OCaml if you want to rebuild the generated files, and
   also to build the OCaml bindings
 

+- (Optional) OCaml xml-light, only needed if you want to rebuild the
+  virt-inspector bindings from virt-inspector.rng.
+

 - (Optional) local Fedora mirror
 
 - (Optional) Perl if you want to build the perl bindings
 - (Optional) local Fedora mirror
 
 - (Optional) Perl if you want to build the perl bindings


@@ -73,6 +85,11 @@ bindings
 
 - (Optional) GHC if you want to build the Haskell bindings
 
 
 - (Optional) GHC if you want to build the Haskell bindings
 

+- (Optional) Perl XML::XPath, Sys::Virt modules (for libvirt support
+in virt-inspector).
+
+- (Optional, but highly recommended) perl-libintl for translating perl code.
+

 Running ./configure will check you have all the requirements installed
 on your machine.
 
 Running ./configure will check you have all the requirements installed
 on your machine.
 


@@ -120,13 +137,17 @@ or build from our source RPMs.
 Debian
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 Debian
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 

-libguestfs should build and run on Debian.
+libguestfs is now built as a package in Debian by Guido Gunther and
+the other Debian libvirt maintainers.  See:
+
+http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/DebianLibvirtTeam#Packages

 
 

-febootstrap, yum, rpm, fakeroot, fakechroot are all packaged in
-Debian.
+You can build for Debian in two different ways, either building a
+Fedora-based appliance using febootstrap, yum, rpm, fakeroot,
+fakechroot (all packaged in Debian).  However the recommended way is
+to build a Debian-based appliance using debootstrap and debirf.

 
 

-Please see the fedora-virt mailing list for the status of libguestfs
-in Debian.
+Both ways are supported by the configure script.

 
 
 qemu
 
 
 qemu


@@ -135,16 +156,9 @@ qemu
 By far the most common problem is with broken or incompatible
 qemu releases.
 
 By far the most common problem is with broken or incompatible
 qemu releases.
 

-First of all, you need qemu >= 0.10.4, which contains a vmchannel
-implementation.  There are several, conflicting, incompatible things
-called 'vmchannel' which at one time or another have been added or
-proposed for qemu/KVM.  The _only_ one we support is this one:
-
-  http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2009-02/msg01042.html
-
-Secondly, different versions of qemu have problems booting the
-appliance for different reasons.  This varies between versions of
-qemu, and Linux distributions which add their own patches.
+Different versions of qemu have problems booting the appliance for
+different reasons.  This varies between versions of qemu, and Linux
+distributions which add their own patches.

 
 If you find a problem, you could try using your own qemu built from
 source (qemu is very easy to build from source), with a 'qemu
 
 If you find a problem, you could try using your own qemu built from
 source (qemu is very easy to build from source), with a 'qemu


@@ -171,6 +185,32 @@ On some systems, the chmod will not survive a reboot, and you will
 need to make edits to the udev configuration.
 
 
 need to make edits to the udev configuration.
 
 

+vmchannel
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Previous versions of libguestfs required something called "vmchannel".
+Vmchannel is a special device given to virtual machines which allows
+them to communicate in some way with the host, often (but not always)
+without using a traditional network device.  In reality, there is no
+one thing called "vmchannel".  This idea has been reimplemented
+several times under the name vmchannel, and other hypervisors have
+their own incompatible implementation(s) too.
+
+In libguestfs <= 1.0.71, we required a specific vmchannel which is
+properly known as "guestfwd" and has been upstream in qemu since here:
+
+  http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2009-02/msg01042.html
+
+In libguestfs >= 1.0.71 we don't require any vmchannel implementation,
+as long as qemu has been compiled with support for SLIRP (user mode
+networking, or "-net user"), which is almost always the case.
+
+However we still offer the ability to use vmchannel, and in future we
+may add support for other types of qemu, which is useful in a few
+cases, specifically where qemu packagers decide to compile out support
+for SLIRP (qemu packagers: please don't do this).
+
+

 Supermin appliance
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 Supermin appliance
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------