X-Git-Url: http://git.annexia.org/?p=libguestfs.git;a=blobdiff_plain;f=README;h=272203580ccd9f49e1e774d0dc7f62c935ebd7a2;hp=88fca7d3064839f2b88783c71ea71ef827bebf58;hb=c665d14f29dd5d66be315b3042cb562aa0c40edd;hpb=7baf58278b620504d67acd01d3d992603fcd3b70 diff --git a/README b/README index 88fca7d..2722035 100644 --- a/README +++ b/README @@ -1,60 +1,65 @@ -Libguestfs is a library for accessing and modifying guest disk images. -Amongst the things this is good for: making batch configuration -changes to guests, getting disk used/free statistics (see also: -virt-df), migrating between virtualization systems (see also: -virt-p2v), performing partial backups, performing partial guest -clones, cloning guests and changing registry/UUID/hostname info, and -much else besides. +Libguestfs is tools and a library for accessing and modifying guest +disk images. For more information see the home page: -Libguestfs uses Linux kernel and qemu code, and can access any type of -guest filesystem that Linux and qemu can, including but not limited -to: ext2/3/4, btrfs, FAT and NTFS, LVM, many different disk partition -schemes, qcow, qcow2, vmdk. + http://libguestfs.org/ -Libguestfs provides ways to enumerate guest storage (eg. partitions, -LVs, what filesystem is in each LV, etc.). It can also run commands -in the context of the guest. Also you can access filesystems over FTP. +For discussion, development, patches, etc. please use the mailing +list: -Libguestfs is a library that can be linked with C and C++ management -programs (or management programs written in OCaml, Perl, Python, Ruby, Java -or Haskell). You can also use it from shell scripts or the command line. - -Libguestfs was written by Richard W.M. Jones (rjones@redhat.com). -For discussion please use the fedora-virt mailing list: - - https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-virt + http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/libguestfs Requirements ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -- recent QEMU >= 0.10 with vmchannel support - http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2009-02/msg01042.html +- recent QEMU >= 0.13 with virtio-serial support -- febootstrap >= 2.0 +- kernel >= 2.6.34 with virtio-serial support enabled. virtio-block + support is not required but comes highly recommended. -- fakeroot - -- fakechroot >= 2.9 +- febootstrap >= 3.0 (recommended >= 3.3) + *NB*: febootstrap 2.x WILL NOT WORK + febootstrap 3.x is distro-independent, and is required on + Debian and other distros too - XDR, rpcgen (on Linux these are provided by glibc) +- pcre (Perl Compatible Regular Expressions C library) (optional) + +- libmagic (the library that corresponds to the 'file' command) (optional) + +- libvirt (optional) + +- libxml2 (optional) + +- libconfig (optional, to parse /etc/libguestfs-tools.conf) + +- Augeas (http://augeas.net/) (optional) + +- gperf + - squashfs-tools (mksquashfs only) -- (Optional) Augeas (http://augeas.net/) +- genisoimage (NOT mkisofs any more) + +- hivex >= 1.2.1 (http://libguestfs.org/download) + +- (Optional) Berkeley DB 'db_dump' and 'db_load' utilities + (db4-utils or db4.X-util or similar) -- perldoc (pod2man, pod2text) to generate the manual pages and - other documentation. +- (Optional) FUSE to build the FUSE module + +- perldoc (pod2man, pod2text, pod2html) to generate the manual pages + and other documentation. - (Optional) Readline to have nicer command-line editing in guestfish. -- (Optional) 'reged' program from chntpw to decode Windows registry - entries (http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/) +- (Optional) xmllint to validate virt-inspector RELAX NG schema - (Optional) OCaml if you want to rebuild the generated files, and also to build the OCaml bindings -- (Optional) local Fedora mirror +- (Optional) OCaml PCRE bindings (ocaml-pcre). - (Optional) Perl if you want to build the perl bindings @@ -67,6 +72,26 @@ bindings - (Optional) GHC if you want to build the Haskell bindings +- (Optional) Perl Sys::Virt module. + +- (Optional) Perl Win::Hivex module. + +- (Optional) Perl Pod::Usage module. + +- (Optional) Perl Test::More module (from perl Test::Simple). + +- (Optional) Perl String::ShellQuote module. + +- (Optional, but highly recommended) perl-libintl for translating perl code. + +- po4a for translating manpages and POD files. + This is optional when compiling from the tarball, but mandatory + if you compile from git. + +- (Optional) PHP, phpize if you want to build the PHP bindings + +- (Optional, but highly recommended) getfacl, getfattr + Running ./configure will check you have all the requirements installed on your machine. @@ -76,13 +101,9 @@ Building Then make the daemon, library and root filesystem: - ./configure [--with-mirror=URI] + ./configure make -Use the optional --with-mirror parameter to specify the URI of a local -Fedora mirror. See the discussion of the MIRROR parameter in the -febootstrap(8) manpage. - Finally run the tests: make check @@ -92,32 +113,35 @@ this command as root: make install +You can run guestfish, guestmount and the virt tools without needing +to install, using the "run" script in the top directory. This script +sets up some environment variables. For example: -Fedora ----------------------------------------------------------------------- + ./run ./fish/guestfish [usual guestfish args ...] -We provide packages for Fedora >= 11 in Fedora. Use those, or build -from our source RPMs - it's far simpler that way. + ./run ./inspector/virt-inspector [usual virt-inspector args ...] -You can compile libguestfs on Fedora 10 but you cannot use it with the -version of qemu in Fedora 10. You need to compile your own qemu, see -section 'qemu' below. +If you are already in the fish/ subdirectory, then the following +command will also work: + ../run ./guestfish [...] -RHEL / EPEL / CentOS etc ----------------------------------------------------------------------- +You can also make a symlink (note: NOT a hard link) from your $PATH to +the run script, eg: -We provide packages in EPEL which cover RHEL/CentOS >= 5. Use those -or build from our source RPMs. + cd ~/bin + ln -s ~/libguestfs/run libguestfs-run + cd ~/libguestfs + libguestfs-run ./inspector/virt-inspector [...] +You can also run the C programs under valgrind like this: -Debian ----------------------------------------------------------------------- + ./run valgrind [valgrind opts...] ./cat/virt-cat [virt-cat opts...] + +This also works with sudo (eg. if you need root access for libvirt or +to access a block device): -libguestfs should build and run on Debian. At the moment we don't -provide Debian packages, and because of the appliance it's rather -complicated to provide a package which could be accepted into the -Debian repositories. Want to help? Please contact us. + sudo ./run ./cat/virt-cat -d LinuxGuest /etc/passwd qemu @@ -126,16 +150,9 @@ qemu By far the most common problem is with broken or incompatible qemu releases. -First of all, you need qemu >= 0.10.4, which contains a vmchannel -implementation. There are several, conflicting, incompatible things -called 'vmchannel' which at one time or another have been added or -proposed for qemu/KVM. The _only_ one we support is this one: - - http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2009-02/msg01042.html - -Secondly, different versions of qemu have problems booting the -appliance for different reasons. This varies between versions of -qemu, and Linux distributions which add their own patches. +Different versions of qemu have problems booting the appliance for +different reasons. This varies between versions of qemu, and Linux +distributions which add their own patches. If you find a problem, you could try using your own qemu built from source (qemu is very easy to build from source), with a 'qemu @@ -162,26 +179,43 @@ On some systems, the chmod will not survive a reboot, and you will need to make edits to the udev configuration. -Notes on cross-architecture support +vmchannel ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -At the moment we basically don't support cross-architecture or -32-on-64. This limits what is possible for some guests. Filesystem -operations and FTP export will work fine, but running commands in -guests may not be possible. +Previous versions of libguestfs required something called "vmchannel". +Vmchannel is a special device given to virtual machines which allows +them to communicate in some way with the host, often (but not always) +without using a traditional network device. In reality, there is no +one thing called "vmchannel". This idea has been reimplemented +several times under the name vmchannel, and other hypervisors have +their own incompatible implementation(s) too. + +In libguestfs <= 1.0.71, we required a specific vmchannel which is +properly known as "guestfwd" and has been upstream in qemu since here: -To enable this requires work for cross-architecture and 32-on-64 -support in febootstrap, fakeroot and fakechroot. + http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2009-02/msg01042.html -The daemon/ directory contains its own configure script. This is so -that in future we will be able to cross-compile the daemon. +In libguestfs >= 1.0.71 we don't require any vmchannel implementation, +as long as qemu has been compiled with support for SLIRP (user mode +networking, or "-net user"), which is almost always the case. + +In libguestfs >= 1.5.4 we switched again to using qemu's virtio-serial +and removed all the other vmchannels and the SLIRP channel. + + +Supermin appliance +---------------------------------------------------------------------- + +In libguestfs >= 1.7.19 the supermin appliance is the default and only +supported form of appliance. For more information see febootstrap +(http://people.redhat.com/~rjones/febootstrap/). Mirroring tip ---------------------------------------------------------------------- On my machines I can usually rebuild the appliance in around 3 -minutes. If it takes much longer for you, use a local Fedora mirror +minutes. If it takes much longer for you, use a local distro mirror or squid. To use squid to cache yum downloads, read this first: @@ -205,21 +239,14 @@ distributions. Non-Linux ports are trickier, but we will accept patches if they aren't too invasive. The main porting issues are with the dependencies needed to build the -appliance. You will need to find or port the following packages -first: - - - fakeroot - - fakechroot - - python - - rpm-python http://www.rpm.org/ - - yum http://yum.baseurl.org/ - - febootstrap http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/febootstrap/ +appliance. You will need to port the febootstrap first +(http://people.redhat.com/~rjones/febootstrap/). Copyright and license information ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -Copyright (C) 2009 Red Hat Inc. +Copyright (C) 2009-2011 Red Hat Inc. The library is distributed under the LGPLv2+. The programs are distributed under the GPLv2+. Please see the files COPYING and