+
+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
+
+ntfsck: checker for NTFS filesystems
+
+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.
+
+guestfish drive letters
+-----------------------
+
+There should be an option to mount all Windows drives as separate
+paths, like C: => /c/, D: => /d/ etc.
+
+More inspection features
+------------------------
+
+- last shutdown time
+- DHCP address
+- last time the software was updated
+- last user who logged in
+- lastlog, last, who
+
+Integrate virt-inspector with CMDBs
+-----------------------------------
+
+Either integrate virt-inspector with Configuration Management
+Databases (CMDBs) or at least check that virt-inspector produces the
+right range of data so that integration would be possible. The
+standards for CMDBs come from the DMTF, see eg:
+
+http://dmtf.org/news/pr/2009/7/dmtf-releases-cmdbf-standard-federating-configuration-management-data
+
+Efficient way to visit all files
+--------------------------------
+
+https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2010/12/15/tip-audit-virtual-machine-for-setuid-files/#content
+
+A naive method would look like:
+
+ g#visit ~return_stats:true "/" (
+ fun pathname stat ->
+ ...
+ )
+
+However this has two disadvantages:
+
+ - requires hand-written custom bindings in each language
+ - unclear about locking, thread-safety and re-entrancy of handle g
+
+A better way would be to have some sort of explicit "download all
+filenames and stat structures", which could then be iterated over:
+
+ let files = g#find_opts ~return_stats:true "/" in
+ List.iter (
+ fun pathname stat ->
+ ...
+ )
+
+The problem with this is that 'files' is going to be larger than a
+protocol buffer.
+
+This leads to thinking about changes to the protocol / generator to
+make this simpler. The proposal would be to add RBigStringList,
+RBigStructList [or RBig (Ranytype ...)]. These would work like
+FileOut, in that they would use file streaming to stream XDR
+structures (probably written to a file on the library side).
+Generated code would hide most of the implementation.
+
+We also need to think about security issues: is it possible for the
+daemon to keep sending back data forever, and if so what happens on
+the library side.
+
+[Users can now use virt-ls to solve some of these problems, but it is
+not a general solution at the API level]
+
+Interactive disk creator
+------------------------
+
+An interactive disk creator program.
+
+Attach method for disconnected operation
+----------------------------------------
+
+http://libguestfs.org/guestfs.3.html#guestfs_set_attach_method
+
+"Librarian" has an idea that he should be able to attach to a regular
+appliance, but disconnect from it and reconnect to it later. This
+would be some sort of modified attach method (see link above).
+
+The complexity here is that we would no longer have access to
+stdin/stdout (or we'd have to direct that somewhere else).
git.annexia.org / libguestfs.git / blobdiff