virt-cat: Handle Windows paths and drive letters (RHBZ#693359).

[libguestfs.git] / cat / virt-cat.pod

diff --git a/cat/virt-cat.pod b/cat/virt-cat.pod
index bb3af2b..a4b54b8 100755 (executable)
--- a/cat/virt-cat.pod
+++ b/cat/virt-cat.pod
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ directory (starting with '/').
 
 C<virt-cat> can be used to quickly view a file.  To edit a file, use
 C<virt-edit>.  For more complex cases you should look at the
-L<guestfish(1)> tool.
+L<guestfish(1)> tool (see L</USING GUESTFISH> below).
 
 =head1 EXAMPLES
 
@@ -92,7 +92,8 @@ not used at all.
 
 =item B<--domain> guest
 
-Add all the disks from the named libvirt guest.
+Add all the disks from the named libvirt guest.  Domain UUIDs can be
+used instead of names.
 
 =item B<--echo-keys>
 
@@ -164,6 +165,69 @@ name as a guest.
 
 For compatibility the old style is still supported.
 
+=head1 WINDOWS PATHS
+
+C<virt-cat> has a limited ability to understand Windows drive letters
+and paths (eg. C<E:\foo\bar.txt>).
+
+If and only if the guest is running Windows then:
+
+=over 4
+
+=item *
+
+Drive letter prefixes like C<C:> are resolved against the
+Windows Registry to the correct filesystem.
+
+=item *
+
+Any backslash (C<\>) characters in the path are replaced
+with forward slashes so that libguestfs can process it.
+
+=item *
+
+The path is resolved case insensitively to locate the file
+that should be displayed.
+
+=back
+
+There are some known shortcomings:
+
+=over 4
+
+=item *
+
+Some NTFS symbolic links may not be followed correctly.
+
+=item *
+
+NTFS junction points that cross filesystems are not followed.
+
+=back
+
+=head1 USING GUESTFISH
+
+L<guestfish(1)> is a more powerful, lower level tool which you can use
+when C<virt-cat> doesn't work.
+
+Using C<virt-cat> is approximately equivalent to doing:
+
+ guestfish --ro -i -d domname download file -
+
+where C<domname> is the name of the libvirt guest, and C<file> is the
+full path to the file.  Note the final C<-> (meaning "output to
+stdout").
+
+The command above uses libguestfs's guest inspection feature and so
+does not work on guests that libguestfs cannot inspect, or on things
+like arbitrary disk images that don't contain guests.  To display a
+file from a disk image directly, use:
+
+ guestfish --ro -a disk.img -m /dev/sda1 download file -
+
+where C<disk.img> is the disk image, C</dev/sda1> is the filesystem
+within the disk image, and C<file> is the full path to the file.
+
 =head1 SHELL QUOTING
 
 Libvirt guest names can contain arbitrary characters, some of which
@@ -171,11 +235,18 @@ have meaning to the shell such as C<#> and space.  You may need to
 quote or escape these characters on the command line.  See the shell
 manual page L<sh(1)> for details.
 
+=head1 EXIT STATUS
+
+This program returns 0 if successful, or non-zero if there was an
+error.
+
 =head1 SEE ALSO
 
 L<guestfs(3)>,
 L<guestfish(1)>,
+L<virt-copy-out(1)>,
 L<virt-edit(1)>,
+L<virt-tar-out(1)>,
 L<http://libguestfs.org/>.
 
 =head1 AUTHOR
@@ -184,7 +255,7 @@ Richard W.M. Jones L<http://people.redhat.com/~rjones/>
 
 =head1 COPYRIGHT
 
-Copyright (C) 2010 Red Hat Inc.
+Copyright (C) 2010-2011 Red Hat Inc.
 
 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by