-libguestfs is a library for accessing and modifying guest disk images.
+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:
clones, cloning guests and changing registry/UUID/hostname info, and
much else besides.
-libguestfs uses Linux kernel and qemu code, and can access any type of
+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.
-libguestfs provides ways to enumerate guest storage (eg. partitions,
+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 mount guest filesystems on
-the host (requires root privs and NFS).
+in the context of the guest. Also you can access filesystems over FTP.
-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 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).
+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
Requirements
----------------------------------------------------------------------
-- Recent QEMU with vmchannel support
+- recent QEMU with vmchannel support
-- febootstrap >= 1.2
+- febootstrap >= 1.5
- XDR, rpcgen
-- (Optional) Local Fedora mirror
+- Augeas (http://augeas.net/)
+
+- perldoc (pod2man, pod2text) 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) local Fedora mirror
+
+- (Optional) 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
Running ./configure will check you have all the requirements installed
on your machine.
Then make the daemon, library and root filesystem:
- ./configure [--mirror=URI]
+ ./configure [--with-mirror=URI]
make
-Use the optional --mirror parameter to specify the URI of a local
+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.
make install
+
+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.
+
+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:
+
+ 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
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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 NFS export will work fine, but running commands in
+operations and FTP export will work fine, but running commands in
guests may not be possible.
To enable this requires work for cross-architecture and 32-on-64
-support in febootstrap.
+support in febootstrap, fakeroot and fakechroot.
The daemon/ directory contains its own configure script. This is so
that in future we will be able to cross-compile the daemon.
+Mirroring tip
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Having a local Fedora mirror makes a massive difference to the time it
+takes to build and rebuild initramfs images.
+
+Failing that, use squid to cache yum downloads, but 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,
+choose a Fedora mirror which is close to you, set this with
+'./configure --with-mirror=[...]', and then proxy the whole lot
+through squid by setting http_proxy environment variable).
+
+You will also need to substantially increase the squid configuration
+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.
+
+
Copyright and license information
----------------------------------------------------------------------
git.annexia.org / libguestfs.git / blobdiff