X-Git-Url: http://git.annexia.org/?p=libguestfs.git;a=blobdiff_plain;f=README;h=8bb69258a1b127a362b7eb30da228c5219fdf16d;hp=f1670213e1fedd362e3ee8540ed57436d1a9a977;hb=72f4b2e7493bf81b111ecd83490c9d3ad2480382;hpb=b8b89f509c353fb662794c58bc840c8468c6e18f diff --git a/README b/README index f167021..8bb6925 100644 --- a/README +++ b/README @@ -1,55 +1,61 @@ -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 - -- febootstrap >= 2.0 +- recent QEMU >= 0.13 with virtio-serial support -- fakeroot +- kernel >= 2.6.34 with virtio-serial support enabled. virtio-block + and virtio-serial support are not required but highly recommended. -- 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) -- (Optional) Augeas (http://augeas.net/) +- pcre (Perl Compatible Regular Expressions C library) (optional) + +- libmagic (the library that corresponds to the 'file' command) (optional) + +- libvirt (optional) + +- libxml2 (optional) + +- Augeas (http://augeas.net/) (optional) + +- gperf + +- squashfs-tools (mksquashfs only) + +- genisoimage / mkisofs + +- 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) OCaml if you want to rebuild the generated files, and -also to build the OCaml bindings +- (Optional) xmllint to validate virt-inspector RELAX NG schema -- (Optional) local Fedora mirror +- (Optional) OCaml if you want to rebuild the generated files, and + also to build the OCaml bindings - (Optional) Perl if you want to build the perl bindings @@ -62,6 +68,22 @@ 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. + +- (Optional) po4a for translating manpages and POD files. + +- (Optional) PHP, phpize if you want to build the PHP bindings + Running ./configure will check you have all the requirements installed on your machine. @@ -71,13 +93,9 @@ 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 @@ -88,49 +106,15 @@ this command as root: make install -Fedora ----------------------------------------------------------------------- - -We provide packages for Fedora >= 11 in Fedora. Use those, or build -from our source RPMs - it's far simpler that way. - -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. - - -RHEL / EPEL / CentOS etc ----------------------------------------------------------------------- - -We provide packages in EPEL which cover RHEL/CentOS >= 5. Use those -or build from our source RPMs. - - -Debian ----------------------------------------------------------------------- - -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. - - 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 @@ -157,26 +141,43 @@ 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: + + http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2009-02/msg01042.html + +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. -To enable this requires work for cross-architecture and 32-on-64 -support in febootstrap, fakeroot and fakechroot. -The daemon/ directory contains its own configure script. This is so -that in future we will be able to cross-compile the daemon. +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: @@ -200,21 +201,14 @@ 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) 2009-2010 Red Hat Inc. The library is distributed under the LGPLv2+. The programs are distributed under the GPLv2+. Please see the files COPYING and