+
+Ideas for extra commands
+------------------------
+
+ General glibc / core programs:
+ chgrp
+ more mk*temp calls
+
+ ext2 properties:
+ chattr
+ lsattr
+ badblocks
+ blkid
+ debugfs
+ dumpe2fs
+ e2image
+ e2undo
+ filefrag
+ findfs
+ logsave
+ mklost+found
+
+ SELinux:
+ chcat
+ restorecon
+ ch???
+
+ Oddball:
+ pivot_root
+ fts(3) / ftw(3)
+
+Other initrd-* commands
+-----------------------
+
+Such as:
+
+initrd-extract
+initrd-replace
+
+Simple editing of configuration files
+-------------------------------------
+
+Some easy non-Augeas methods to edit configuration files.
+I'm thinking:
+
+ replace /etc/file key value
+
+which would look in /etc/file for any instances of
+
+ key=...
+ key ...
+ key:...
+
+and replace them with
+
+ key=value
+ key value
+ key:value
+
+That would solve about 50% of reconfiguration needs, and for the
+rest you'd use Augeas, 'download'+'upload' or 'edit'.
+
+RWMJ: I had a go at implementing this, but it's quite error-prone to
+do this sort of editing inside the C-based daemon code. It's far
+better to do it with Augeas, or else to use an external language like
+Perl.
+
+Quick Perl scripts
+------------------
+
+Currently we can't do Perl "one-liners". ie. The current syntax for
+any short Perl one-liner would be:
+
+ perl -MSys::Guestfs -e '$g = Sys::Guestfs->new(); $g->add_drive ("foo"); $g->launch; $g->mount ("/dev/sda1", "/"); ....'
+
+You can see we're well beyond a single line just getting to the point
+of adding drives and mounting.
+
+First suggestion:
+
+ $h = create ($filename, \"/dev/sda1\" => \"/\");
+
+ $h = create ([$file1, $file2], \"/dev/sda1\" => \"/\");
+
+To mount read-only, add C<ro =E<gt> 1> like this:
+
+ $h = create ($filename, \"/dev/sda1\" => \"/\", ro => 1);
+
+which is equivalent to the following sequence of calls:
+
+ $h = Sys::Guestfs->new ();
+ $h->add_drive_ro ($filename);
+ $h->launch ();
+ $h->mount_ro (\"/dev/sda1\", \"/\");
+
+Command-line form would be:
+
+ perl -MSys::Guestfs=:all -e '$_=create("guest.img", "/dev/sda1" => "/"); $_->cat ("/etc/fstab");'
+
+That's not brief enough for one-liners, so we could have an extra
+autogenerated module which creates a Sys::Guestfs handle singleton
+(the handle is an implicit global variable as in guestfish), eg:
+
+ perl -MSys::Guestfs::One -e 'inspect("guest.img"); cat ("/etc/fstab");'
+
+How would editing files work?
+
+virt-rescue pty
+---------------
+
+See:
+http://search.cpan.org/~rgiersig/IO-Tty-1.08/Pty.pm
+http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?node_id=582185
+
+Note that pty requires cooperation inside the C code too (there are
+two sides to a pty, and one has to be handled after the fork).
+
+[I tried to implement this in the new C virt-rescue, but it doesn't
+work. qemu is implementing its own ptys, and they are broken. Need
+to fix qemu.]
+
+Windows-based daemon/appliance
+------------------------------
+
+See discussion on list:
+https://www.redhat.com/archives/libguestfs/2009-November/msg00165.html
+
+qemu locking
+------------
+
+Add -drive file=...,lock=exclusive and -drive file=...,lock=shared
+
+Change libguestfs and libvirt to do the right thing, so that multiple
+instances of qemu cannot stomp on each other.
+
+virt-disk-explore
+-----------------
+
+For multi-level disk images such as live CDs:
+http://rwmj.wordpress.com/2009/07/15/unpack-the-russian-doll-of-a-f11-live-cd/
+
+It's possible with libguestfs to recursively look for anything that
+might be a filesystem, mount-{,loop} it and look in those, revealing
+anything in a disk image.
+
+However this won't work easily for VM disk images in the disk image.
+One would have to download those to the host and launch another
+libguestfs instance.
+
+[Not sure this is such a good idea. See also live CD inspection idea below.]
+
+Map filesystems to disk blocks
+------------------------------
+
+Map files/filesystems/(any other object) to the actual disk
+blocks they occupy.
+
+And vice versa.
+
+Is it even possible?
+
+See also contribs/visualize-alignment/
+
+Integration with host intrusion systems
+---------------------------------------
+
+Perfect way to monitor VMs from outside the VM. Look for file
+hashes, log events, login/logout etc.
+
+http://www.ossec.net/
+http://la-samhna.de/samhain/
+http://sourceforge.net/projects/aide/
+http://osiris.shmoo.com/
+http://sourceforge.net/projects/tripwire/
+
+Fix 'file'
+----------
+
+https://www.redhat.com/archives/libguestfs/2010-June/msg00053.html
+https://www.redhat.com/archives/libguestfs/2010-June/msg00079.html
+
+Freeze/thaw filesystems
+-----------------------
+
+Access to these ioctls:
+http://git.kernel.org/linus/fcccf502540e3d7
+
+Tips for new users in guestfish
+-------------------------------
+
+$ guestfish
+Tip: You need to 'add disk.img' or 'alloc disk.img nn' to make a new image.
+Type 'notips' to disable tips permanently.
+><fs> add mydisk
+Tip: You need to type 'run' before you can see into the disk image.
+><fs> run
+Tip: Use 'list-filesystems' to see what filesystems are available.
+><fs> list-filesystems
+/dev/vda1
+Tip: Use 'mount fs /' to mount a filesystem.
+><fs> mount /dev/vda1 /
+Tip: Use 'll /' to view the filesystem or ...
+><fs> ll /
+
+Could we make guestfish interactive if commands are used without params?
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+><fs> sparse
+[[Prints man page]]
+Image name? disk.img
+Size of image? 10M
+
+Common problems
+---------------
+
+How can we solve these common user problems?
+
+[space for common problems here]
+
+Better support for encrypted devices
+------------------------------------
+
+Currently LUKS support only works if the device contains volume
+groups. If it contains, eg., partitions, you cannot access them.
+We would like to add:
+
+ - Direct access to the /dev/mapper device (eg. if it contains
+ anything apart from VGs).
+
+Display image as PS
+-------------------
+
+Display the structure of an image file as a PS.
+
+Greater use of blkid / libblkid
+-------------------------------
+
+guestfs_zero should use wipefs. See wipefs(8).
+
+There are various useful functions in libblkid for listing partitions,
+devices etc which we are essentially duplicating in the daemon. It
+would make more sense to just use libblkid for this.
+
+There are some places where we call out to the 'blkid' program. This
+might be replaced by direct use of the library (if this is easier).
+
+Visualization
+-------------
+
+Eric Sandeen pointed out the blktrace tool which is a better way of
+capturing traces than using patched qemu (see
+contrib/visualize-alignment). We would still use the same
+visualization tools in conjunction with blktrace traces.
+
+guestfish parsing
+-----------------
+
+At the moment guestfish uses an ad hoc parser which has many
+shortcomings. We should change to using a lex/yacc-based scanner and
+parser (there are better parsers out there, but yacc is sufficient and
+very widely available).
+
+The scanner must deal with the case of parsing a whole command string,
+eg. for a command that the user types in:
+
+ ><fs> add-drive-opts "/tmp/foo" readonly:true
+
+and also with parsing single words from the command line:
+
+ guestfish add-drive-opts /tmp/foo readonly:true
+
+Note the quotes are for scanning and don't indicate types.
+
+We should also allow variables and expressions as part of this new
+parsing code, eg:
+
+ set roots inspect-os
+ set product inspect-get-product-name %{roots[0]}
+
+% is better than $ because of shell escaping and confusion with shell
+variables.
+
+Can we combine this with ability to set and read environment
+variables? Currently guestfish uses many environment variables like
+$EDITOR without any corresponding ability to set them.
+
+ set EDITOR /usr/bin/emacs
+ echo $EDITOR # or %{EDITOR}
+ edit /etc/resolv.conf
+
+live CD inspection for Windows 7
+--------------------------------
+
+Windows 7 install CDs are quite different and pretty impenetrable.
+There are no obvious files to parse.
+
+More ntfs tools
+---------------
+
+ntfsprogs actually has a lot more useful tools than we currently
+use. Interesting ones are:
+
+ntfslabel: display or change filesystem label (we should unify all
+ set*label APIs into a single set_vfs_label which can deal with any
+ filesystem)
+
+ntfsclone: clone, image, restore, rescue NTFS
+
+ntfsinfo: print various information about NTFS volume and files
+
+ntfs streams: extract alternate streams from NTFS files
+
+Undelete files
+--------------
+
+Two useful tools:
+
+ - ext2undelete
+ - ntfsundelete
+
+More mkfs_opts options
+----------------------
+
+Useful options to offer:
+ - Set label.
+ - Set UUID.
+
+Use /proc/self/mountinfo
+------------------------
+
+This file contains lots of interesting information about
+what is mounted and where. eg:
+
+ 16 21 0:3 / /proc rw,relatime - proc /proc rw
+ 17 21 0:16 / /sys rw,relatime - sysfs /sys rw,seclabel
+ 18 23 0:5 / /dev rw,relatime - devtmpfs udev rw,seclabel,size=1906740k,nr_inodes=476685,mode=755
+ 26 21 253:3 / /home rw,relatime - ext4 /dev/mapper/vg-lv_home rw,seclabel,barrier=1,data=ordered
+
+This could be used instead of current hairy code to parse the output
+of the 'mount' command. We could add new APIs to return kernel mount
+options, type of filesystem at a mountpoint etc.
git.annexia.org / libguestfs.git / blobdiff