=head2 As an interactive shell
$ guestfish
-
+
Welcome to guestfish, the libguestfs filesystem interactive shell for
editing virtual machine filesystems.
-
+
Type: 'help' for help with commands
'quit' to quit the shell
-
+
><fs> help
=head2 As a script interpreter
Enable very verbose messages. This is particularly useful if you find
a bug.
+=item B<-x>
+
+Echo each command before executing it.
+
=item B<-D> | B<--no-dest-paths>
Don't tab-complete paths on the guest filesystem. It is useful to be
this causes extra "hidden" guestfs calls to be made, so this option is
here to allow this feature to be disabled.
+=item B<-V> | B<--version>
+
+Display the guestfish / libguestfs version number and exit.
+
=back
=head1 COMMANDS ON COMMAND LINE
the contents of C</remote> on the mounted filesystem to
C<local/remote-data.tar.gz>. (See C<tgz-out>).
+=head1 PIPES
+
+Use C<command E<lt>spaceE<gt> | command> to pipe the output of the
+first command (a guestfish command) to the second command (any host
+command). For example:
+
+ cat /etc/passwd | awk -F: '$3 == 0 { print }'
+
+(where C<cat> is the guestfish cat command, but C<awk> is the host awk
+program). The above command would list all accounts in the guest
+filesystem which have UID 0, ie. root accounts including backdoors.
+Other examples:
+
+ hexdump /bin/ls | head
+ list-devices | tail -1
+
+The space before the pipe symbol is required, any space after the pipe
+symbol is optional. Everything after the pipe symbol is just passed
+straight to the host shell, so it can contain redirections, globs and
+anything else that makes sense on the host side.
+
+To use a literal argument which begins with a pipe symbol, you have
+to quote it, eg:
+
+ echo "|"
+
=head1 EXIT ON ERROR BEHAVIOUR
By default, guestfish will ignore any errors when in interactive mode
not cause guestfish to exit, even if that (one) command returns an
error.
-=head1 COMMANDS
-
-=head2 help
-
- help
- help cmd
+=head1 GUESTFISH COMMANDS
-Without any parameter, this lists all commands. With a C<cmd>
-parameter, this displays detailed help for a command.
-
-=head2 quit | exit
-
-This exits guestfish. You can also use C<^D> key.
+The commands in this section are guestfish convenience commands, in
+other words, they are not part of the L<guestfs(3)> API.
=head2 alloc | allocate
NOTE: This will not work reliably for large files
(> 2 MB) or binary files containing \0 bytes.
+=head2 glob
+
+ glob command args...
+
+Expand wildcards in any paths in the args list, and run C<command>
+repeatedly on each matching path.
+
+See section WILDCARDS AND GLOBBING.
+
+=head2 help
+
+ help
+ help cmd
+
+Without any parameter, this lists all commands. With a C<cmd>
+parameter, this displays detailed help for a command.
+
=head2 lcd
lcd directory
Note that C<!cd> won't do what you might expect.
-=head2 glob
+=head2 more | less
- glob command args...
+ more filename
-Expand wildcards in any paths in the args list, and run C<command>
-repeatedly on each matching path.
+ less filename
-See section WILDCARDS AND GLOBBING.
+This is used to view a file.
+
+The default viewer is C<$PAGER>. However if you use the alternate
+command C<less> you will get the C<less> command specifically.
+
+NOTE: This will not work reliably for large files
+(> 2 MB) or binary files containing \0 bytes.
+
+=head2 quit | exit
+
+This exits guestfish. You can also use C<^D> key.
+
+=head2 reopen
+
+ reopen
+
+Close and reopen the libguestfs handle. It is not necessary to use
+this normally, because the handle is closed properly when guestfish
+exits. However this is occasionally useful for testing.
+
+=head2 time
+
+ time command args...
+
+Run the command as usual, but print the elapsed time afterwards. This
+can be useful for benchmarking operations.
+
+=head1 COMMANDS
@ACTIONS@
=over 4
+=item EDITOR
+
+The C<edit> command uses C<$EDITOR> as the editor. If not
+set, it uses C<vi>.
+
+=item HOME
+
+If compiled with GNU readline support, then the command history
+is saved in C<$HOME/.guestfish>
+
+=item LIBGUESTFS_APPEND
+
+Pass additional options to the guest kernel.
+
=item LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG
Set C<LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG=1> to enable verbose messages. This has the
same effect as using the B<-v> option.
+=item LIBGUESTFS_MEMSIZE
+
+Set the memory allocated to the qemu process, in megabytes. For
+example:
+
+ LIBGUESTFS_MEMSIZE=700
+
=item LIBGUESTFS_PATH
Set the path that guestfish uses to search for kernel and initrd.img.
the qemu which was found at compile time by the configure script is
used.
-=item LIBGUESTFS_APPEND
+=item PAGER
-Pass additional options to the guest kernel.
-
-=item HOME
-
-If compiled with GNU readline support, then the command history
-is saved in C<$HOME/.guestfish>
-
-=item EDITOR
-
-The C<edit> command uses C<$EDITOR> as the editor. If not
-set, it uses C<vi>.
+The C<more> command uses C<$PAGER> as the pager. If not
+set, it uses C<more>.
=back
git.annexia.org / libguestfs.git / blobdiff