-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 OCaml, Perl, Python, Ruby or Java).
-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
+- recent QEMU >= 0.13 with virtio-serial support
+
+- kernel >= 2.6.34 with virtio-serial support enabled. virtio-block
+ and virtio-serial support are not required but highly recommended.
+
+- febootstrap >= 3.0 (recommended >= 3.3)
+ *NB*: febootstrap 2.x WILL NOT WORK
+ febootstrap 3.x is distro-independent, and is required on
+ Debian and other distros too
+
+- XDR, rpcgen (on Linux these are provided by glibc)
+
+- pcre (Perl Compatible Regular Expressions C library) (optional)
+
+- libmagic (the library that corresponds to the 'file' command) (optional)
+
+- libvirt (optional)
+
+- libxml2 (optional)
+
+- Augeas (http://augeas.net/) (optional)
+
+- gperf
-- febootstrap >= 1.5
+- squashfs-tools (mksquashfs only)
-- XDR, rpcgen
+- genisoimage / mkisofs
-- Augeas (http://augeas.net/)
+- hivex >= 1.2.1 (http://libguestfs.org/download)
-- perldoc (pod2man, pod2text) to generate the manual pages and
-other documentation.
+- (Optional) Berkeley DB 'db_dump' and 'db_load' utilities
+ (db4-utils or db4.X-util or similar)
+
+- (Optional) FUSE to build the FUSE module
+
+- perldoc (pod2man, pod2text, pod2html) to generate the manual pages
+ and other documentation.
- (Optional) Readline to have nicer command-line editing in guestfish.
-- (Optional) OCaml if you want to rebuild the generated files, and
-also to build the OCaml bindings
+- (Optional) xmllint to validate virt-inspector RELAX NG schema
-- (Optional) local Fedora mirror
+- (Optional) OCaml if you want to rebuild the generated files, and
+ also to build the OCaml bindings
- (Optional) Perl if you want to build the perl 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) 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, but highly recommended) perl-libintl for translating perl code.
+
+- po4a for translating manpages and POD files.
+ This is optional when compiling from the tarball, but mandatory
+ if you compile from git.
+
+- (Optional) PHP, phpize if you want to build the PHP bindings
+
Running ./configure will check you have all the requirements installed
on your machine.
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
+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
----------------------------------------------------------------------
-If you are using x86-64, then 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.
+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
-You may also need to enable KVM support for non-root users, by doing:
+On some systems, this will work too:
chmod o+rw /dev/kvm
+On some systems, the chmod will not survive a reboot, and you will
+need to make edits to the udev configuration.
-Notes on cross-architecture support
+
+vmchannel
----------------------------------------------------------------------
-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.
+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
-To enable this requires work for cross-architecture and 32-on-64
-support in febootstrap, fakeroot and fakechroot.
+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.
-The daemon/ directory contains its own configure script. This is so
-that in future we will be able to cross-compile the daemon.
+In libguestfs >= 1.5.4 we switched again to using qemu's virtio-serial
+and removed all the other vmchannels and the SLIRP channel.
+
+
+Supermin appliance
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+In libguestfs >= 1.7.19 the supermin appliance is the default and only
+supported form of appliance. For more information see febootstrap
+(http://people.redhat.com/~rjones/febootstrap/).
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) 2009-2010 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