X-Git-Url: http://git.annexia.org/?p=libguestfs.git;a=blobdiff_plain;f=guestfish.pod;h=cf45c6ed76a49609ddfd4d56b38abdd4f8ab86cf;hp=0c3fda6b03d5b6c57035947b87235437974c8fcc;hb=82918538abc707fb59fff42204f99ef031c593a9;hpb=8863ecde5dba262c0736da7505a9fa3655ed42f6 diff --git a/guestfish.pod b/guestfish.pod index 0c3fda6..cf45c6e 100644 --- a/guestfish.pod +++ b/guestfish.pod @@ -49,13 +49,13 @@ Remove C (in reality not such a great idea): =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 - + > help =head2 As a script interpreter @@ -66,6 +66,11 @@ Remove C (in reality not such a great idea): sfdisk /dev/sda 0 0 0 , mkfs ext2 /dev/sda1 +=head2 Remote control + + eval `guestfish --listen` + guestfish --remote cmd + =head1 DESCRIPTION Guestfish is a shell and command-line tool for examining and modifying @@ -92,6 +97,13 @@ Displays detailed help on a single command C. Add a block device or virtual machine image to the shell. +=item B<-D> | B<--no-dest-paths> + +Don't tab-complete paths on the guest filesystem. It is useful to be +able to hit the tab key to complete paths on the guest filesystem, but +this causes extra "hidden" guestfs calls to be made, so this option is +here to allow this feature to be disabled. + =item B<-f file> | B<--file file> Read commands from C. To write pure guestfish @@ -118,11 +130,17 @@ Typical usage is either: guestfish -i /dev/Guests/MyGuest -You cannot use I<-a> or I<-m> in conjunction with this option, and -options other than I<--ro> might not behave correctly. +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. See also: L. +=item B<--listen> + +Fork into the background and listen for remote commands. See section +I below. + =item B<-m dev[:mountpoint]> | B<--mount dev[:mountpoint]> Mount the named partition or logical volume on the given mountpoint. @@ -139,27 +157,33 @@ automatically launched. Disable autosync. This is enabled by default. See the discussion of autosync in the L manpage. +=item B<--remote[=pid]> + +Send remote commands to C<$GUESTFISH_PID> or C. See section +I below. + =item B<-r> | B<--ro> This changes the C<-m> option so that mounts are done read-only (see C in the L manpage). +=item B<--selinux> + +Enable SELinux support for the guest. See L. + =item B<-v> | B<--verbose> Enable very verbose messages. This is particularly useful if you find a bug. -=item B<-D> | B<--no-dest-paths> - -Don't tab-complete paths on the guest filesystem. It is useful to be -able to hit the tab key to complete paths on the guest filesystem, but -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. +=item B<-x> + +Echo each command before executing it. + =back =head1 COMMANDS ON COMMAND LINE @@ -226,9 +250,13 @@ quotes. For example: rm '/"' A few commands require a list of strings to be passed. For these, use -a space-separated list, enclosed in quotes. For example: +a whitespace-separated list, enclosed in quotes. Strings containing whitespace +to be passed through must be enclosed in single quotes. A literal single quote +must be escaped with a backslash. vgcreate VG "/dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1" + command "/bin/echo 'foo bar'" + command "/bin/echo \'foo\'" =head1 WILDCARDS AND GLOBBING @@ -308,6 +336,20 @@ to quote it, eg: echo "|" +=head1 HOME DIRECTORIES + +If a parameter starts with the character C<~> then the tilde may be +expanded as a home directory path (either C<~> for the current user's +home directory, or C<~user> for another user). + +Note that home directory expansion happens for users known I, not in the guest filesystem. + +To use a literal argument which begins with a tilde, you have to quote +it, eg: + + echo "~" + =head1 EXIT ON ERROR BEHAVIOUR By default, guestfish will ignore any errors when in interactive mode @@ -319,6 +361,51 @@ If you prefix a command with a I<-> character, then that command will not cause guestfish to exit, even if that (one) command returns an error. +=head1 REMOTE CONTROL GUESTFISH OVER A SOCKET + +Guestfish can be remote-controlled over a socket. This is useful +particularly in shell scripts where you want to make several different +changes to a filesystem, but you don't want the overhead of starting +up a guestfish process each time. + +Start a guestfish server process using: + + eval `guestfish --listen` + +and then send it commands by doing: + + guestfish --remote cmd [...] + +To cause the server to exit, send it the exit command: + + guestfish --remote exit + +Note that the server will normally exit if there is an error in a +command. You can change this in the usual way. See section I. + +=head2 CONTROLLING MULTIPLE GUESTFISH PROCESSES + +The C statement sets the environment variable C<$GUESTFISH_PID>, +which is how the C<--remote> option knows where to send the commands. +You can have several guestfish listener processes running using: + + eval `guestfish --listen` + pid1=$GUESTFISH_PID + eval `guestfish --listen` + pid2=$GUESTFISH_PID + ... + guestfish --remote=$pid1 cmd + guestfish --remote=$pid2 cmd + +=head2 REMOTE CONTROL DETAILS + +Remote control happens over a Unix domain socket called +C, where C<$UID> is the effective +user ID of the process, and C<$PID> is the process ID of the server. + +Guestfish client and server versions must match exactly. + =head1 GUESTFISH COMMANDS The commands in this section are guestfish convenience commands, in @@ -419,6 +506,14 @@ NOTE: This will not work reliably for large files 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... @@ -439,6 +534,12 @@ can be useful for benchmarking operations. The C command uses C<$EDITOR> as the editor. If not set, it uses C. +=item GUESTFISH_PID + +Used with the I<--remote> option to specify the remote guestfish +process to control. See section I. + =item HOME If compiled with GNU readline support, then the command history @@ -471,11 +572,25 @@ Set the default qemu binary that libguestfs uses. If not set, then the qemu which was found at compile time by the configure script is used. +=item LIBGUESTFS_TRACE + +Set C to enable command traces. + =item PAGER The C command uses C<$PAGER> as the pager. If not set, it uses C. +=item TMPDIR + +Location of temporary directory, defaults to C. + +If libguestfs was compiled to use the supermin appliance then each +handle will require rather a large amount of space in this directory +for short periods of time (~ 80 MB). You can use C<$TMPDIR> to +configure another directory to use in case C is not large +enough. + =back =head1 EXIT CODE @@ -486,7 +601,10 @@ I<1> if there was an error. =head1 SEE ALSO L, -L. +L, +L, +L, +L. =head1 AUTHORS