Welcome to guestfish, the libguestfs filesystem interactive shell for
editing virtual machine filesystems.
- Type: 'help' for help with commands
+ Type: 'help' for a list of commands
+ 'man' to read the manual
'quit' to quit the shell
- ><fs> help
+ ><fs> man
=head2 From shell scripts
=head2 As a script interpreter
-Create a 50MB disk containing an ext2-formatted partition:
+Create a 100MB disk containing an ext2-formatted partition:
#!/usr/bin/guestfish -f
- alloc /tmp/output.img 50M
+ sparse test1.img 100M
run
part-disk /dev/sda mbr
mkfs ext2 /dev/sda1
+=head2 Start with a prepared disk
+
+An alternate way to create a 100MB disk called C<test1.img> containing
+a single ext2-formatted partition:
+
+ guestfish -N fs
+
+To list what is available do:
+
+ guestfish -N list | less
+
=head2 Remote control
eval `guestfish --listen --ro`
guestfish -i /dev/Guests/MyGuest
-You cannot use I<-a>, I<-m>, I<--listen>, I<--remote> or I<--selinux>
-in conjunction with this option, and options other than I<--ro> might
-not behave correctly.
+You cannot use I<-a>, I<-m>, I<-N>, I<--listen>, I<--remote> or
+I<--selinux> in conjunction with this option, and options other than
+I<--ro> might not behave correctly.
See also: L<virt-inspector(1)>.
You have to mount something on C</> before most commands will work.
-If any C<-m> or C<--mount> options are given, the guest is
+If any I<-m> or I<--mount> options are given, the guest is
automatically launched.
If you don't know what filesystems a disk image contains, you
Disable autosync. This is enabled by default. See the discussion
of autosync in the L<guestfs(3)> manpage.
+=item B<-N type> | B<--new type> | B<-N list>
+
+Prepare a fresh disk image formatted as "type". This is an
+alternative to the I<-a> option: whereas I<-a> adds an existing disk,
+I<-N> creates a preformatted disk with a filesystem and adds it.
+See L</PREPARED DISK IMAGES> below.
+
=item B<--remote[=pid]>
Send remote commands to C<$GUESTFISH_PID> or C<pid>. See section
=item B<-r> | B<--ro>
-This changes the C<-a> and C<-m> options so that disks are added and
+This changes the I<-a> and I<-m> options so that disks are added and
mounts are done read-only (see L<guestfs(3)/guestfs_mount_ro>).
The option must always be used if the disk image or virtual machine
might be running, and is generally recommended in cases where you
don't need write access to the disk.
+Note that prepared disk images created with I<-N> are not affected by
+the I<--ro> option.
+
=item B<--selinux>
Enable SELinux support for the guest. See L<guestfs(3)/SELINUX>.
C<run> is a synonym for C<launch>. You must C<launch> (or C<run>)
your guest before mounting or performing any other commands.
-The only exception is that if the C<-m> or C<--mount> option was
+The only exception is that if the I<-m> or I<--mount> option was
given, the guest is automatically run for you (simply because
guestfish can't mount the disks you asked for without doing this).
handles case insensitivity like Windows would. This only works in
argument positions that expect a path.
+=head1 UPLOADING AND DOWNLOADING FILES
+
+For commands such as C<upload>, C<download>, C<tar-in>, C<tar-out> and
+others which upload from or download to a local file, you can use the
+special filename C<-> to mean "from stdin" or "to stdout". For example:
+
+ upload - /foo
+
+reads stdin and creates from that a file C</foo> in the disk image,
+and:
+
+ tar-out /etc - | tar tf -
+
+writes the tarball to stdout and then pipes that into the external
+"tar" command (see L</PIPES>).
+
+When using C<-> to read from stdin, the input is read up to the end of
+stdin. You can also use a special "heredoc"-like syntax to read up to
+some arbitrary end marker:
+
+ upload -<<END /foo
+ input line 1
+ input line 2
+ input line 3
+ END
+
+Any string of characters can be used instead of C<END>. The end
+marker must appear on a line of its own, without any preceeding or
+following characters (not even spaces).
+
+Note that the C<-E<lt>E<lt>> syntax only applies to parameters used to
+upload local files (so-called "FileIn" parameters in the generator).
+
=head1 EXIT ON ERROR BEHAVIOUR
By default, guestfish will ignore any errors when in interactive mode
=head2 CONTROLLING MULTIPLE GUESTFISH PROCESSES
The C<eval> statement sets the environment variable C<$GUESTFISH_PID>,
-which is how the C<--remote> option knows where to send the commands.
+which is how the I<--remote> option knows where to send the commands.
You can have several guestfish listener processes running using:
eval `guestfish --listen`
Guestfish client and server versions must match exactly.
-=head1 UPLOADING AND DOWNLOADING FILES
+=head1 PREPARED DISK IMAGES
-For commands such as C<upload>, C<download>, C<tar-in>, C<tar-out> and
-others which upload from or download to a local file, you can use the
-special filename C<-> to mean "from stdin" or "to stdout". For example:
+Use the I<-N type> or I<--new type> parameter to select one of a set
+of preformatted disk images that guestfish can make for you to save
+typing. This is particularly useful for testing purposes. This
+option is used instead of the I<-a> option, and like I<-a> can appear
+multiple times (and can be mixed with I<-a>).
- upload - /foo
+The new disk is called C<test1.img> for the first I<-N>, C<test2.img>
+for the second and so on. Existing files in the current directory are
+I<overwritten>.
-reads stdin and creates from that a file C</foo> in the disk image,
-and:
+The type briefly describes how the disk should be sized, partitioned,
+how filesystem(s) should be created, and how content should be added.
+Optionally the type can be followed by extra parameters, separated by
+C<:> (colon) characters. For example, I<-N fs> creates a default
+100MB, sparsely-allocated disk, containing a single partition, with
+the partition formatted as ext2. I<-N fs:ext4:1G> is the same, but
+for an ext4 filesystem on a 1GB disk instead.
- tar-out /etc - | tar tf -
+To list the available types and any extra parameters they take, run:
-writes the tarball to stdout and then pipes that into the external
-"tar" command (see L</PIPES>).
+ guestfish -N list | less
-When using C<-> to read from stdin, the input is read up to the end of
-stdin. You can also use a special "heredoc"-like syntax to read up to
-some arbitrary end marker:
+Note that the prepared filesystem is not mounted. You would usually
+have to use the C<mount /dev/sda1 /> command or add the
+I<-m /dev/sda1> option.
- upload -<<END /foo
- input line 1
- input line 2
- input line 3
- END
+If any I<-N> or I<--new> options are given, the guest is automatically
+launched.
-Any string of characters can be used instead of C<END>. The end
-marker must appear on a line of its own, without any preceeding or
-following characters (not even spaces).
+=head2 EXAMPLES
-Note that the C<-E<lt>E<lt>> syntax only applies to parameters used to
-upload local files (so-called "FileIn" parameters in the generator).
+Create a 100MB disk with an ext4-formatted partition:
+
+ guestfish -N fs:ext4
+
+Create a 32MB disk with a VFAT-formatted partition, and mount it:
+
+ guestfish -N fs:vfat:32M -m /dev/sda1
+
+Create a blank 200MB disk:
+
+ guestfish -N disk:200M
=head1 GUESTFISH COMMANDS
Note that C<!cd> won't do what you might expect.
+=head2 man | manual
+
+ man
+
+Opens the manual page for guestfish.
+
=head2 more | less
more filename
=head1 EXIT CODE
-guestfish returns I<0> if the commands completed without error, or
-I<1> if there was an error.
+guestfish returns 0 if the commands completed without error, or
+1 if there was an error.
=head1 SEE ALSO
=head1 COPYRIGHT
-Copyright (C) 2009 Red Hat Inc.
+Copyright (C) 2009-2010 Red Hat Inc.
L<http://libguestfs.org/>
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
git.annexia.org / libguestfs.git / blobdiff