-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:
-virt-p2v), performing partial backups, performing partial guest
-clones, cloning guests and changing registry/UUID/hostname info, and
-much else besides.
+Libguestfs is tools and a library for accessing and modifying guest
+disk images. For more information see the home page:
-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.
+ http://libguestfs.org/
-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 access filesystems over FTP.
+For discussion, development, patches, etc. please use the mailing
+list:
-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).
-For discussion please use the fedora-virt mailing list:
-
- https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-virt
+ http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/libguestfs
Requirements
----------------------------------------------------------------------
-- recent QEMU with vmchannel support
+Running ./configure will check you have all the requirements installed
+on your machine.
-- febootstrap >= 1.2
+Fedora/RHEL users:
-- XDR, rpcgen
+ A useful tip is to run:
-- perldoc (pod2man, pod2text) to generate the manual pages and
-other documentation.
+ yum-builddep libguestfs
-- (Optional) OCaml if you want to modify the code or rebuild certain
-generated files.
+ which will install all build dependencies automatically. If that is
+ successful, you don't need to bother with the rest of this section.
-- (Optional) local Fedora mirror
+Debian/Ubuntu users:
-Running ./configure will check you have all the requirements installed
-on your machine.
+ Take a look at the debian/control file and install everything listed
+ in "Build-Depends". If that is successful, you don't need to bother
+ with the rest of this section.
+
+The full requirements are described below.
+
+For basic functionality and the C tools:
+
+- look at appliance/packagelist.in and install as many of the packages
+ that apply to your distro as possible
+
+- recent QEMU >= 0.13 (0.14 or later is better) with virtio-serial support
+
+- kernel >= 2.6.34 with virtio-serial support enabled.
+
+- virtio-block and virtio-net drivers should be compiled into your
+ host kernel (strictly speaking this is optional, but you will have
+ to make complex changes to the ./configure command line to get it
+ to work if you don't have virtio)
+
+- febootstrap >= 3.3 (it is best to use the latest version)
+
+ Notes: (1) febootstrap 2.x WILL NOT WORK
+ (2) febootstrap 3.x is distro-independent, and is required on
+ Debian and other distros as well as Fedora
+
+- XDR, rpcgen (on Linux these are provided by glibc)
+
+- cpio
+
+- gperf
+
+- genisoimage (NOT mkisofs any more)
+
+- hivex >= 1.2.7 (http://libguestfs.org/download) (optional)
+
+- pcre (Perl Compatible Regular Expressions C library) (optional)
+
+- libmagic (the library that corresponds to the 'file' command) (optional)
+
+- libvirt (optional)
+
+- libxml2 (optional)
+
+- libconfig (optional)
+
+- augeas >= 0.5.0 (http://augeas.net/) (optional)
+
+- Berkeley DB 'db_dump' and 'db_load' utilities
+ (db4-utils or db4.X-util or similar) (optional)
+
+- perldoc (pod2man, pod2text, pod2html) to generate the manual pages
+ and other documentation.
+
+- Readline to have nicer command-line editing in guestfish (optional)
+
+- xmllint (part of libxml2) 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)
+
+- po4a for translating manpages and POD files.
+ This is optional when compiling from the tarball, but mandatory
+ if you compile from git.
+
+- getfacl, getfattr libraries and programs (optional)
+
+To build FUSE support (guestmount):
+
+- FUSE libraries and kernel module (optional)
+
+To build virt-resize:
+
+- OCaml PCRE bindings (ocaml-pcre) (optional)
+
+To build language bindings:
+
+- Perl if you want to build the perl bindings (optional)
+
+- Python if you want to build the python bindings (optional)
+
+- Ruby, rake if you want to build the ruby bindings (optional)
+
+- Java, JNI, jpackage-utils if you want to build the java
+ bindings (optional)
+
+- GHC if you want to build the Haskell bindings (optional)
+
+- PHP, phpize if you want to build the PHP bindings (optional)
+
+To build the Perl tools:
+
+- Perl Sys::Virt module (optional)
+
+- Perl Win::Hivex module (optional)
+
+- Perl Pod::Usage module (optional)
+
+- Perl Test::More module (from perl Test::Simple) (optional)
+
+- Perl String::ShellQuote module (optional)
+
+- perl-libintl for translating perl code (optional)
Building
Then make the daemon, library and root filesystem:
- ./configure [--with-mirror=URI]
+ ./configure
make
-Use the optional --with-mirror parameter to specify the URI of a local
-Fedora mirror. See the discussion of the MIRROR parameter in the
-febootstrap(8) manpage.
-
Finally run the tests:
make check
If everything works, you can install the library and tools by running
-these commands as root:
+this command as root:
make install
+You can run guestfish, guestmount and the virt tools without needing
+to install, using the "run" script in the top directory. This script
+sets up some environment variables. For example:
+
+ ./run ./fish/guestfish [usual guestfish args ...]
+
+ ./run ./inspector/virt-inspector [usual virt-inspector args ...]
+
+If you are already in the fish/ subdirectory, then the following
+command will also work:
+
+ ../run ./guestfish [...]
+
+You can also make a symlink (note: NOT a hard link) from your $PATH to
+the run script, eg:
+
+ cd ~/bin
+ ln -s ~/libguestfs/run libguestfs-run
+ cd ~/libguestfs
+ libguestfs-run ./inspector/virt-inspector [...]
-Notes on cross-architecture support
+You can also run the C programs under valgrind like this:
+
+ ./run valgrind [valgrind opts...] ./cat/virt-cat [virt-cat opts...]
+
+This also works with sudo (eg. if you need root access for libvirt or
+to access a block device):
+
+ sudo ./run ./cat/virt-cat -d LinuxGuest /etc/passwd
+
+
+qemu
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+By far the most common problem is with broken or incompatible
+qemu releases.
+
+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
+wrapper'. Qemu wrappers are described in the guestfs(3) manpage.
+
+
+Note on using KVM
----------------------------------------------------------------------
-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 FTP export will work fine, but running commands in
-guests may not be possible.
+By default the configure script will look for qemu-kvm (KVM support).
+You will need a reasonably recent processor for this to work. KVM is
+much faster than using plain Qemu.
+
+You may also need to enable KVM support for non-root users, by following
+these instructions:
+
+ http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/FAQ#How_can_I_use_kvm_with_a_non-privileged_user.3F
+
+On some systems, this will work too:
-To enable this requires work for cross-architecture and 32-on-64
-support in febootstrap, fakeroot and fakechroot.
+ chmod o+rw /dev/kvm
-The daemon/ directory contains its own configure script. This is so
-that in future we will be able to cross-compile the daemon.
+On some systems, the chmod will not survive a reboot, and you will
+need to make edits to the udev configuration.
Mirroring tip
----------------------------------------------------------------------
-Having a local Fedora mirror makes a massive difference to the time it
-takes to build and rebuild initramfs images.
+On my machines I can usually rebuild the appliance in around 3
+minutes. If it takes much longer for you, use a local distro mirror
+or squid.
-Failing that, use squid to cache yum downloads, but read this first:
+To use squid to cache yum downloads, 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,
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.
+
+Porting to other Linux distros / non-Linux
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+libguestfs itself should be fairly portable to other Linux
+distributions. Non-Linux ports are trickier, but we will accept
+patches if they aren't too invasive.
+
+The main porting issues are with the dependencies needed to build the
+appliance. You will need to port the febootstrap first
+(http://people.redhat.com/~rjones/febootstrap/).
Copyright and license information
----------------------------------------------------------------------
-Copyright (C) 2009 Red Hat Inc.
+Copyright (C) 2009-2011 Red Hat Inc.
The library is distributed under the LGPLv2+. The programs are
distributed under the GPLv2+. Please see the files COPYING and
git.annexia.org / libguestfs.git / blobdiff