guestfish(1)

NAME
guestfish - the guest filesystem shell

SYNOPSIS
 guestfish [--options] [commands]

 guestfish

 guestfish [--ro|--rw] -a disk.img

 guestfish [--ro|--rw] -a disk.img -m dev[:mountpoint]

 guestfish -d libvirt-domain

 guestfish [--ro|--rw] -a disk.img -i

 guestfish -d libvirt-domain -i

WARNING
Using "guestfish" in write mode on live virtual machines, or concurrently with other disk editing tools, can be dangerous, potentially causing disk corruption. The virtual machine must be shut down before you use this command, and disk images must not be edited concurrently.

Use the --ro (read-only) option to use "guestfish" safely if the disk image or virtual machine might be live. You may see strange or inconsistent results if running concurrently with other changes, but with this option you won't risk disk corruption.

DESCRIPTION
Guestfish is a shell and command-line tool for examining and modifying virtual machine filesystems. It uses libguestfs and exposes all of the functionality of the guestfs API, see guestfs(3).

Guestfish gives you structured access to the libguestfs API, from shell scripts or the command line or interactively. If you want to rescue a broken virtual machine image, you should look at the virt-rescue(1) command.

EXAMPLES

  As an interactive shell
 $ guestfish

 Welcome to guestfish, the guest filesystem shell for
 editing virtual machine filesystems.

 Type: 'help' for a list of commands
       'man' to read the manual
       'quit' to quit the shell

 ><fs> add-ro disk.img
 ><fs> run
 ><fs> list-filesystems
 /dev/sda1: ext4
 /dev/vg_guest/lv_root: ext4
 /dev/vg_guest/lv_swap: swap
 ><fs> mount /dev/vg_guest/lv_root /
 ><fs> cat /etc/fstab
 # /etc/fstab
 # Created by anaconda
 [...]
 ><fs> exit

  From shell scripts
Create a new /etc/motd file in a guest or disk image:

 guestfish <<_EOF_
 add disk.img
 run
 mount /dev/vg_guest/lv_root /
 write /etc/motd "Welcome, new users"
 _EOF_

List the LVM logical volumes in a disk image:

 guestfish -a disk.img --ro <<_EOF_
 run
 lvs
 _EOF_

List all the filesystems in a disk image:

 guestfish -a disk.img --ro <<_EOF_
 run
 list-filesystems
 _EOF_

  On one command line
Update /etc/resolv.conf in a guest:

 guestfish \
   add disk.img : run : mount /dev/vg_guest/lv_root / : \
   write /etc/resolv.conf "nameserver 1.2.3.4"

Edit /boot/grub/grub.conf interactively:

 guestfish --rw --add disk.img \
   --mount /dev/vg_guest/lv_root \
   --mount /dev/sda1:/boot \
   edit /boot/grub/grub.conf

  Mount disks automatically
Use the -i option to automatically mount the disks from a virtual machine:

 guestfish --ro -a disk.img -i cat /etc/group

 guestfish --ro -d libvirt-domain -i cat /etc/group

Another way to edit /boot/grub/grub.conf interactively is:

 guestfish --rw -a disk.img -i edit /boot/grub/grub.conf

  As a script interpreter
Create a 100MB disk containing an ext2-formatted partition:

 #!/usr/bin/guestfish -f
 sparse test1.img 100M
 run
 part-disk /dev/sda mbr
 mkfs ext2 /dev/sda1

  Start with a prepared disk
Create a 1G disk called test1.img containing a single ext2-formatted partition:

 guestfish -N fs

To list what is available do:

 guestfish -N help | less

  Remote drives
Access a remote disk using ssh:

 guestfish -a ssh://example.com/path/to/disk.img

  Remote control
 eval "`guestfish --listen`"
 guestfish --remote add-ro disk.img
 guestfish --remote run
 guestfish --remote lvs

OPTIONS

--help
    Displays general help on options.

-h
--cmd-help
    Lists all available guestfish commands.

-h CMD
--cmd-help CMD
    Displays detailed help on a single command "cmd".

-a IMAGE
--add IMAGE
    Add a block device or virtual machine image to the shell.

    The format of the disk image is auto-detected. To override this and force a particular format use the --format=.. option.

    Using this flag is mostly equivalent to using the "add" command, with "readonly:true" if the --ro flag was given, and with "format:..." if the --format=... flag was given.

-a URI
--add URI
    Add a remote disk. See "ADDING REMOTE STORAGE".

--blocksize=512
--blocksize=4096
--blocksize
    This parameter sets the sector size of the disk image. It affects all explicitly added subsequent disks after this parameter. Using --blocksize with no argument switches the disk sector size to the default value which is usually 512 bytes. See also "guestfs_add_drive_opts" in guestfs(3).

-c URI
--connect URI
    When used in conjunction with the -d option, this specifies the libvirt URI to use. The default is to use the default libvirt connection.

--csh
    If using the --listen option and a csh-like shell, use this option. See section "REMOTE CONTROL AND CSH" below.

-d LIBVIRT-DOMAIN
--domain LIBVIRT-DOMAIN
    Add disks from the named libvirt domain. If the --ro option is also used, then any libvirt domain can be used. However in write mode, only libvirt domains which are shut down can be named here.

    Domain UUIDs can be used instead of names.

    Using this flag is mostly equivalent to using the "add-domain" command, with "readonly:true" if the --ro flag was given, and with "format:..." if the --format=... flag was given.

--echo-keys
    When prompting for keys and passphrases, guestfish normally turns echoing off so you cannot see what you are typing. If you are not worried about Tempest attacks and there is no one else in the room you can specify this flag to see what you are typing.

-f FILE
--file FILE
    Read commands from "FILE". To write pure guestfish scripts, use:

     #!/usr/bin/guestfish -f

--format=raw|qcow2|..
--format
    The default for the -a option is to auto-detect the format of the disk image. Using this forces the disk format for -a options which follow on the command line. Using --format with no argument switches back to auto-detection for subsequent -a options.

    For example:

     guestfish --format=raw -a disk.img

    forces raw format (no auto-detection) for disk.img.

     guestfish --format=raw -a disk.img --format -a another.img

    forces raw format (no auto-detection) for disk.img and reverts to auto-detection for another.img.

    If you have untrusted raw-format guest disk images, you should use this option to specify the disk format. This avoids a possible security problem with malicious guests (CVE-2010-3851). See also "add".

-i
--inspector
    Using virt-inspector(1) code, inspect the disks looking for an operating system and mount filesystems as they would be mounted on the real virtual machine.

    Typical usage is either:

     guestfish -d myguest -i

    (for an inactive libvirt domain called myguest), or:

     guestfish --ro -d myguest -i

    (for active domains, readonly), or specify the block device directly:

     guestfish --rw -a /dev/Guests/MyGuest -i

    Note that the command line syntax changed slightly over older versions of guestfish. You can still use the old syntax:

     guestfish [--ro] -i disk.img

     guestfish [--ro] -i libvirt-domain

    Using this flag is mostly equivalent to using the "inspect-os" command and then using other commands to mount the filesystems that were found.

--key SELECTOR
    Specify a key for LUKS, to automatically open a LUKS device when using the inspection.

    --key NAME:key:KEY_STRING
    --key UUID:key:KEY_STRING
    --key all:key:KEY_STRING
        "NAME" is the libguestfs device name (eg. "/dev/sda1"). "UUID" is the device UUID. "all" means try the key against any encrypted device.

        Use the specified "KEY_STRING" as passphrase.

    --key NAME:file:FILENAME
    --key UUID:file:FILENAME
    --key all:file:FILENAME
        Read the passphrase from FILENAME.

    --key NAME:clevis
    --key UUID:clevis
    --key all:clevis
        Attempt passphrase-less unlocking for the device with Clevis, over the network. Please refer to "ENCRYPTED DISKS" in guestfs(3) for more information on network-bound disk encryption (NBDE).

        Note that if any such option is present on the command line, QEMU user networking will be automatically enabled for the libguestfs appliance.

--keys-from-stdin
    Read key or passphrase parameters from stdin. The default is to try to read passphrases from the user by opening /dev/tty.

    If there are multiple encrypted devices then you may need to supply multiple keys on stdin, one per line.

--listen
    Fork into the background and listen for remote commands. See section "REMOTE CONTROL GUESTFISH OVER A SOCKET" below.

-m dev[:mountpoint[:options[:fstype]]]
--mount dev[:mountpoint[:options[:fstype]]]
    Mount the named partition or logical volume on the given mountpoint.

    If the mountpoint is omitted, it defaults to /.

    You have to mount something on / before most commands will work.

    If any -m or --mount options are given, the guest is automatically launched.

    If you don’t know what filesystems a disk image contains, you can either run guestfish without this option, then list the partitions, filesystems and LVs available (see "list-partitions", "list-filesystems" and "lvs" commands), or you can use the virt-filesystems(1) program.

    The third (and rarely used) part of the mount parameter is the list of mount options used to mount the underlying filesystem. If this is not given, then the mount options are either the empty string or "ro" (the latter if the --ro flag is used). By specifying the mount options, you override this default choice. Probably the only time you would use this is to enable ACLs and/or extended attributes if the filesystem can support them:

     -m /dev/sda1:/:acl,user_xattr

    Using this flag is equivalent to using the "mount-options" command.

    The fourth part of the parameter is the filesystem driver to use, such as "ext3" or "ntfs". This is rarely needed, but can be useful if multiple drivers are valid for a filesystem (eg: "ext2" and "ext3"), or if libguestfs misidentifies a filesystem.

--network
    Enable QEMU user networking in the guest.

-N [FILENAME=]TYPE
--new [FILENAME=]TYPE
-N help
    Prepare a fresh disk image formatted as "TYPE". This is an alternative to the -a option: whereas -a adds an existing disk, -N creates a preformatted disk with a filesystem and adds it. See "PREPARED DISK IMAGES" below.

-n
--no-sync
    Disable autosync. This is enabled by default. See the discussion of autosync in the guestfs(3) manpage.

--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.

--pipe-error
    If writes fail to pipe commands (see "PIPES" below), then the command returns an error.

    The default (also for historical reasons) is to ignore such errors so that:

     ><fs> command_with_lots_of_output | head

    doesn't give an error.

--progress-bars
    Enable progress bars, even when guestfish is used non-interactively.

    Progress bars are enabled by default when guestfish is used as an interactive shell.

--no-progress-bars
    Disable progress bars.

--remote
--remote=PID
    Send remote commands to $GUESTFISH_PID or "pid". See section "REMOTE CONTROL GUESTFISH OVER A SOCKET" below.

-r
--ro
    This changes the -a, -d and -m options so that disks are added and mounts are done read-only.

    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 -N are not affected by this option. Also commands like "add" are not affected - you have to specify the "readonly:true" option explicitly if you need it.

    See also "OPENING DISKS FOR READ AND WRITE" below.

--selinux
    This option is provided for backwards compatibility and does nothing.

-v
--verbose
    Enable very verbose messages. This is particularly useful if you find a bug.

-V
--version
    Display the guestfish / libguestfs version number and exit.

-w
--rw
    This changes the -a, -d and -m options so that disks are added and mounts are done read-write.

    See "OPENING DISKS FOR READ AND WRITE" below.

-x  Echo each command before executing it.

COMMANDS ON COMMAND LINE
Any additional (non-option) arguments are treated as commands to execute.

Commands to execute should be separated by a colon (":"), where the colon is a separate parameter. Thus:

 guestfish cmd [args...] : cmd [args...] : cmd [args...] ...

If there are no additional arguments, then we enter a shell, either an interactive shell with a prompt (if the input is a terminal) or a non-interactive shell.

In either command line mode or non-interactive shell, the first command that gives an error causes the whole shell to exit. In interactive mode (with a prompt) if a command fails, you can continue to enter commands.

Note that arguments of the commands will be considered as guestfish options if they start with a dash ("-"): you can always separate the guestfish options and the rest of the commands (with their arguments) using a double dash ("--"). For example:

 guestfish -- disk_create overlay.qcow2 qcow2 -1 backingfile:image.img

USING launch (OR run)
As with guestfs(3), you must first configure your guest by adding disks, then launch it, then mount any disks you need, and finally issue actions/commands. So the general order of the day is:

•   add or -a/--add

•   launch (aka run)

•   mount or -m/--mount

•   any other commands

"run" is a synonym for "launch". You must "launch" (or "run") your guest before mounting or performing any other commands.

The only exception is that if any of the -i, -m, --mount, -N or --new options were given then "run" is done automatically, simply because guestfish can't perform the action you asked for without doing this.

OPENING DISKS FOR READ AND WRITE
The guestfish, guestmount(1) and virt-rescue(1) options --ro and --rw affect whether the other command line options -a, -c, -d, -i and -m open disk images read-only or for writing.

In libguestfs ≤ 1.10, guestfish, guestmount and virt-rescue defaulted to opening disk images supplied on the command line for write. To open a disk image read-only you have to do -a image --ro.

This matters: If you accidentally open a live VM disk image writable then you will cause irreversible disk corruption.

In a future libguestfs we intend to change the default the other way. Disk images will be opened read-only. You will have to either specify guestfish --rw, guestmount --rw, virt-rescue --rw, or change the configuration file in order to get write access for disk images specified by those other command line options.

This version of guestfish, guestmount and virt-rescue has a --rw option which does nothing (it is already the default). However it is highly recommended that you use this option to indicate that you need write access, and prepare your scripts for the day when this option will be required for write access.

Note: This does not affect commands like "add" and "mount", or any other libguestfs program apart from guestfish and guestmount.

QUOTING
You can quote ordinary parameters using either single or double quotes. For example:

 add "file with a space.img"

 rm '/file name'

 rm '/"'

A few commands require a list of strings to be passed. For these, use 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\'"

  ESCAPE SEQUENCES IN DOUBLE QUOTED ARGUMENTS
In double-quoted arguments (only) use backslash to insert special characters:

"\a"
    Alert (bell) character.

"\b"
    Backspace character.

"\f"
    Form feed character.

"\n"
    Newline character.

"\r"
    Carriage return character.

"\t"
    Horizontal tab character.

"\v"
    Vertical tab character.

"\""
    A literal double quote character.

"\ooo"
    A character with octal value ooo. There must be precisely 3 octal digits (unlike C).

"\xhh"
    A character with hex value hh. There must be precisely 2 hex digits.

    In the current implementation "\000" and "\x00" cannot be used in strings.

"\\"
    A literal backslash character.

OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS
Some commands take optional arguments. These arguments appear in this documentation as "[argname:..]". You can use them as in these examples:

 add filename

 add filename readonly:true

 add filename format:qcow2 readonly:false

Each optional argument can appear at most once. All optional arguments must appear after the required ones.

NUMBERS
This section applies to all commands which can take integers as parameters.

  SIZE SUFFIX
When the command takes a parameter measured in bytes, you can use one of the following suffixes to specify kilobytes, megabytes and larger sizes:

k or K or KiB
    The size in kilobytes (multiplied by 1024).

KB  The size in SI 1000 byte units.

M or MiB
    The size in megabytes (multiplied by 1048576).

MB  The size in SI 1000000 byte units.

G or GiB
    The size in gigabytes (multiplied by 2**30).

GB  The size in SI 10**9 byte units.

T or TiB
    The size in terabytes (multiplied by 2**40).

TB  The size in SI 10**12 byte units.

P or PiB
    The size in petabytes (multiplied by 2**50).

PB  The size in SI 10**15 byte units.

E or EiB
    The size in exabytes (multiplied by 2**60).

EB  The size in SI 10**18 byte units.

Z or ZiB
    The size in zettabytes (multiplied by 2**70).

ZB  The size in SI 10**21 byte units.

Y or YiB
    The size in yottabytes (multiplied by 2**80).

YB  The size in SI 10**24 byte units.

For example:

 truncate-size /file 1G

would truncate the file to 1 gigabyte.

Be careful because a few commands take sizes in kilobytes or megabytes (eg. the parameter to "memsize" is specified in megabytes already). Adding a suffix will probably not do what you expect.

  OCTAL AND HEXADECIMAL NUMBERS
For specifying the radix (base) use the C convention: 0 to prefix an octal number or "0x" to prefix a hexadecimal number. For example:

 1234      decimal number 1234
 02322     octal number, equivalent to decimal 1234
 0x4d2     hexadecimal number, equivalent to decimal 1234

When using the "chmod" command, you almost always want to specify an octal number for the mode, and you must prefix it with 0 (unlike the Unix chmod(1) program):

 chmod 0777 /public  # OK
 chmod 777 /public   # WRONG! This is mode 777 decimal = 01411 octal.

Commands that return numbers usually print them in decimal, but some commands print numbers in other radices (eg. "umask" prints the mode in octal, preceded by 0).

WILDCARDS AND GLOBBING
Neither guestfish nor the underlying guestfs API performs wildcard expansion (globbing) by default. So for example the following will not do what you expect:

 rm-rf /home/*

Assuming you don’t have a directory called literally /home/* then the above command will return an error.

To perform wildcard expansion, use the "glob" command.

 glob rm-rf /home/*

runs "rm-rf" on each path that matches (ie. potentially running the command many times), equivalent to:

 rm-rf /home/jim
 rm-rf /home/joe
 rm-rf /home/mary

"glob" only works on simple guest paths and not on device names.

If you have several parameters, each containing a wildcard, then glob will perform a Cartesian product.

COMMENTS
Any line which starts with a # character is treated as a comment and ignored. The # can optionally be preceded by whitespace, but not by a command. For example:

 # this is a comment
         # this is a comment
 foo # NOT a comment

Blank lines are also ignored.

RUNNING COMMANDS LOCALLY
Any line which starts with a ! character is treated as a command sent to the local shell (/bin/sh or whatever system(3) uses). For example:

 !mkdir local
 tgz-out /remote local/remote-data.tar.gz

will create a directory "local" on the host, and then export the contents of /remote on the mounted filesystem to local/remote-data.tar.gz. (See "tgz-out").

To change the local directory, use the "lcd" command. "!cd" will have no effect, due to the way that subprocesses work in Unix.

  LOCAL COMMANDS WITH INLINE EXECUTION
If a line starts with <! then the shell command is executed (as for !), but subsequently any output (stdout) of the shell command is parsed and executed as guestfish commands.

Thus you can use shell script to construct arbitrary guestfish commands which are then parsed by guestfish.

For example it is tedious to create a sequence of files (eg. /foo.1 through /foo.100) using guestfish commands alone. However this is simple if we use a shell script to create the guestfish commands for us:

 <! for n in `seq 1 100`; do echo write /foo.$n $n; done

or with names like /foo.001:

 <! for n in `seq 1 100`; do printf "write /foo.%03d %d\n" $n $n; done

When using guestfish interactively it can be helpful to just run the shell script first (ie. remove the initial "<" character so it is just an ordinary ! local command), see what guestfish commands it would run, and when you are happy with those prepend the "<" character to run the guestfish commands for real.

PIPES
Use "command <space> | 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 "cat" is the guestfish cat command, but "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
 tgz-out / - | tar ztf -

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 "|"

HOME DIRECTORIES
If a parameter starts with the character "~" then the tilde may be expanded as a home directory path (either "~" for the current user's home directory, or "~user" for another user).

Note that home directory expansion happens for users known on the host, not in the guest filesystem.

To use a literal argument which begins with a tilde, you have to quote it, eg:

 echo "~"

ENCRYPTED DISKS
Libguestfs has some support for Linux guests encrypted according to the Linux Unified Key Setup (LUKS) standard, which includes nearly all whole disk encryption systems used by modern Linux guests, and Windows BitLocker.

Identify encrypted block devices and partitions using "vfs-type":

 ><fs> vfs-type /dev/sda2
 crypto_LUKS

or:

 ><fs> vfs-type /dev/sda2
 BitLocker

Then open those devices using "cryptsetup-open". This creates a device-mapper device called /dev/mapper/name.

 ><fs> cryptsetup-open /dev/sda2 name
 Enter key or passphrase ("key"): <enter the passphrase>

For Linux guests you have to tell LVM to scan for volume groups on the newly created mapper device:

 vgscan
 vg-activate-all true

The filesystems or logical volumes can now be mounted in the usual way.

Before closing an encrypted device you must unmount any logical volumes on it and deactivate the volume groups by calling "vg-activate false VG" on each one. Then you can close the mapper device:

 vg-activate false /dev/VG
 cryptsetup-close /dev/mapper/name

WINDOWS PATHS
If a path is prefixed with "win:" then you can use Windows-style drive letters and paths (with some limitations). The following commands are equivalent:

 file /WINDOWS/system32/config/system.LOG

 file win:\windows\system32\config\system.log

 file WIN:C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM.LOG

The parameter is rewritten "behind the scenes" by looking up the position where the drive is mounted, prepending that to the path, changing all backslash characters to forward slash, then resolving the result using "case-sensitive-path". For example if the E: drive was mounted on /e then the parameter might be rewritten like this:

 win:e:\foo\bar => /e/FOO/bar

This only works in argument positions that expect a path.

UPLOADING AND DOWNLOADING FILES
For commands such as "upload", "download", "tar-in", "tar-out" and others which upload from or download to a local file, you can use the special filename "-" to mean "from stdin" or "to stdout". For example:

 upload - /foo

reads stdin and creates from that a file /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 "PIPES").

When using "-" 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 "END". The end marker must appear on a line of its own, without any preceding or following characters (not even spaces).

Note that the "-<<" syntax only applies to parameters used to upload local files (so-called "FileIn" parameters in the generator).

EXIT ON ERROR BEHAVIOUR
By default, guestfish will ignore any errors when in interactive mode (ie. taking commands from a human over a tty), and will exit on the first error in non-interactive mode (scripts, commands given on the command line).

If you prefix a command with a - character, then that command will not cause guestfish to exit, even if that (one) command returns an error.

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 "EXIT ON ERROR BEHAVIOUR".

  CONTROLLING MULTIPLE GUESTFISH PROCESSES
The "eval" statement sets the environment variable $GUESTFISH_PID, which is how the --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

  REMOTE CONTROL AND CSH
When using csh-like shells (csh, tcsh etc) you have to add the --csh option:

 eval "`guestfish --listen --csh`"

  REMOTE CONTROL DETAILS
Remote control happens over a Unix domain socket called /tmp/.guestfish-$UID/socket-$PID, where $UID is the effective user ID of the process, and $PID is the process ID of the server.

Guestfish client and server versions must match exactly.

Older versions of guestfish were vulnerable to CVE-2013-4419 (see "CVE-2013-4419" in guestfs(3)). This is fixed in the current version.

  USING REMOTE CONTROL ROBUSTLY FROM SHELL SCRIPTS
From Bash, you can use the following code which creates a guestfish instance, correctly quotes the command line, handles failure to start, and cleans up guestfish when the script exits:

 #!/bin/bash -

 set -e

 guestfish[0]="guestfish"
 guestfish[1]="--listen"
 guestfish[2]="--ro"
 guestfish[3]="-a"
 guestfish[4]="disk.img"

 GUESTFISH_PID=
 eval $("${guestfish[@]}")
 if [ -z "$GUESTFISH_PID" ]; then
     echo "error: guestfish didn't start up, see error messages above"
     exit 1
 fi

 cleanup_guestfish ()
 {
     guestfish --remote -- exit >/dev/null 2>&1 ||:
 }
 trap cleanup_guestfish EXIT ERR

 guestfish --remote -- run

 # ...

  REMOTE CONTROL DOES NOT WORK WITH -a ETC. OPTIONS
Options such as -a, --add, -N, --new etc don’t interact properly with remote support. They are processed locally, and not sent through to the remote guestfish. In particular this won't do what you expect:

 guestfish --remote --add disk.img

Don’t use these options. Use the equivalent commands instead, eg:

 guestfish --remote add-drive disk.img

or:

 guestfish --remote
 ><fs> add disk.img

  REMOTE CONTROL RUN COMMAND HANGING
Using the "run" (or "launch") command remotely in a command substitution context hangs, ie. don't do (note the backquotes):

 a=`guestfish --remote run`

Since the "run" command produces no output on stdout, this is not useful anyway. For further information see https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=592910.

PREPARED DISK IMAGES
Use the -N [filename=]type or --new [filename=]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 -a option, and like -a can appear multiple times (and can be mixed with -a).

The new disk is called test1.img for the first -N, test2.img for the second and so on. Existing files in the current directory are overwritten. You can use a different filename by specifying "filename=" before the type (see examples below).

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 ":" (colon) characters. For example, -N fs creates a default 1G, sparsely-allocated disk, containing a single partition, with the partition formatted as ext2. -N fs:ext4:2G is the same, but for an ext4 filesystem on a 2GB disk instead.

Note that the prepared filesystem is not mounted. You would usually have to use the "mount /dev/sda1 /" command or add the -m /dev/sda1 option.

If any -N or --new options are given, the libguestfs appliance is automatically launched.

  EXAMPLES
Create a 1G disk with an ext4-formatted partition, called test1.img in the current directory:

 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

Create a blank 200MB disk called blankdisk.img (instead of test1.img):

 guestfish -N blankdisk.img=disk:200M

  -N disk - create a blank disk
"guestfish -N [filename=]disk[:size]"

Create a blank disk, size 1G (by default).

The default size can be changed by supplying an optional parameter.

The optional parameters are:

 Name          Default value
 size          1G            the size of the disk image

  -N part - create a partitioned disk
"guestfish -N [filename=]part[:size[:partition]]"

Create a disk with a single partition. By default the size of the disk is 1G (the available space in the partition will be a tiny bit smaller) and the partition table will be MBR (old DOS-style).

These defaults can be changed by supplying optional parameters.

The optional parameters are:

 Name          Default value
 size          1G            the size of the disk image
 partition     mbr           partition table type

  -N fs - create a filesystem
"guestfish -N [filename=]fs[:filesystem[:size[:partition]]]"

Create a disk with a single partition, with the partition containing an empty filesystem. This defaults to creating a 1G disk (the available space in the filesystem will be a tiny bit smaller) with an MBR (old DOS-style) partition table and an ext2 filesystem.

These defaults can be changed by supplying optional parameters.

The optional parameters are:

 Name          Default value
 filesystem    ext2          the type of filesystem to use
 size          1G            the size of the disk image
 partition     mbr           partition table type

  -N lv - create a disk with logical volume
"guestfish -N [filename=]lv[:name[:size[:partition]]]"

Create a disk with a single partition, set up the partition as an LVM2 physical volume, and place a volume group and logical volume on there. This defaults to creating a 1G disk with the VG and LV called "/dev/VG/LV". You can change the name of the VG and LV by supplying an alternate name as the first optional parameter.

Note this does not create a filesystem. Use 'lvfs' to do that.

The optional parameters are:

 Name          Default value
 name          /dev/VG/LV    the name of the VG and LV to use
 size          1G            the size of the disk image
 partition     mbr           partition table type

  -N lvfs - create a disk with logical volume and filesystem
"guestfish -N [filename=]lvfs[:name[:filesystem[:size[:partition]]]]"

Create a disk with a single partition, set up the partition as an LVM2 physical volume, and place a volume group and logical volume on there. Then format the LV with a filesystem. This defaults to creating a 1G disk with the VG and LV called "/dev/VG/LV", with an ext2 filesystem.

The optional parameters are:

 Name          Default value
 name          /dev/VG/LV    the name of the VG and LV to use
 filesystem    ext2          the type of filesystem to use
 size          1G            the size of the disk image
 partition     mbr           partition table type

  -N bootroot - create a boot and root filesystem
"guestfish -N [filename=]bootroot[:bootfs[:rootfs[:size[:bootsize[:partition]]]]]"

Create a disk with two partitions, for boot and root filesystem. Format the two filesystems independently. There are several optional parameters which control the exact layout and filesystem types.

The optional parameters are:

 Name          Default value
 bootfs        ext2          the type of filesystem to use for boot
 rootfs        ext2          the type of filesystem to use for root
 size          1G            the size of the disk image
 bootsize      128M          the size of the boot filesystem
 partition     mbr           partition table type

  -N bootrootlv - create a boot and root filesystem using LVM
"guestfish -N [filename=]bootrootlv[:name[:bootfs[:rootfs[:size[:bootsize[:partition]]]]]]"

This is the same as "bootroot" but the root filesystem (only) is placed on a logical volume, named by default "/dev/VG/LV". There are several optional parameters which control the exact layout.

The optional parameters are:

 Name          Default value
 name          /dev/VG/LV    the name of the VG and LV for root
 bootfs        ext2          the type of filesystem to use for boot
 rootfs        ext2          the type of filesystem to use for root
 size          1G            the size of the disk image
 bootsize      128M          the size of the boot filesystem
 partition     mbr           partition table type

ADDING REMOTE STORAGE
For API-level documentation on this topic, see "guestfs_add_drive_opts" in guestfs(3) and "REMOTE STORAGE" in guestfs(3).

On the command line, you can use the -a option to add network block devices using a URI-style format, for example:

 guestfish -a ssh://root@example.com/disk.img

URIs cannot be used with the "add" command. The equivalent command using the API directly is:

 ><fs> add /disk.img protocol:ssh server:tcp:example.com username:root

The possible -a URI formats are described below.

  -a disk.img

  -a file:///path/to/disk.img
Add the local disk image (or device) called disk.img.

  -a ftp://[user@]example.com[:port]/disk.img

  -a ftps://[user@]example.com[:port]/disk.img

  -a http://[user@]example.com[:port]/disk.img

  -a https://[user@]example.com[:port]/disk.img
Add a disk located on a remote FTP or HTTP server.

The equivalent API command would be:

 ><fs> add /disk.img protocol:(ftp|...) server:tcp:example.com

  -a iscsi://example.com[:port]/target-iqn-name[/lun]
Add a disk located on an iSCSI server.

The equivalent API command would be:

 ><fs> add target-iqn-name/lun protocol:iscsi server:tcp:example.com

  -a nbd://example.com[:port]

  -a nbd://example.com[:port]/exportname

  -a nbd://?socket=/socket

  -a nbd:///exportname?socket=/socket
Add a disk located on Network Block Device (nbd) storage.

The exportname part of the URI specifies an NBD export name, but is usually left empty.

The optional ?socket parameter can be used to specify a Unix domain socket that we talk to the NBD server over. Note that you cannot mix server name (ie. TCP/IP) and socket path.

The equivalent API command would be (no export name):

 ><fs> add "" protocol:nbd server:[tcp:example.com|unix:/socket]

  -a rbd:///pool/disk

  -a rbd://example.com[:port]/pool/disk
Add a disk image located on a Ceph (RBD/librbd) storage volume.

Although libguestfs and Ceph supports multiple servers, only a single server can be specified when using this URI syntax.

The equivalent API command would be:

 ><fs> add pool/disk protocol:rbd server:tcp:example.com:port

  -a ssh://[user@]example.com[:port]/disk.img
Add a disk image located on a remote server, accessed using the Secure Shell (ssh) SFTP protocol. SFTP is supported out of the box by all major SSH servers.

The equivalent API command would be:

 ><fs> add /disk protocol:ssh server:tcp:example.com [username:user]

Note that the URIs follow the syntax of RFC 3986: in particular, there are restrictions on the allowed characters for the various components of the URI. Characters such as ":", "@", and "/" must be percent-encoded:

 $ guestfish -a ssh://user:pass%40word@example.com/disk.img

In this case, the password is "pass@word".

PROGRESS BARS
Some (not all) long-running commands send progress notification messages as they are running. Guestfish turns these messages into progress bars.

When a command that supports progress bars takes longer than two seconds to run, and if progress bars are enabled, then you will see one appearing below the command:

 ><fs> copy-size /large-file /another-file 2048M
 / 10% [#####-----------------------------------------] 00:30

The spinner on the left hand side moves round once for every progress notification received from the backend. This is a (reasonably) golden assurance that the command is "doing something" even if the progress bar is not moving, because the command is able to send the progress notifications. When the bar reaches 100% and the command finishes, the spinner disappears.

Progress bars are enabled by default when guestfish is used interactively. You can enable them even for non-interactive modes using --progress-bars, and you can disable them completely using --no-progress-bars.

PROMPT
You can change or add colours to the default prompt ("><fs>") by setting the "GUESTFISH_PS1" environment variable. A second string ("GUESTFISH_OUTPUT") is printed after the command has been entered and before the output, allowing you to control the colour of the output. A third string ("GUESTFISH_INIT") is printed before the welcome message, allowing you to control the colour of that message. A fourth string ("GUESTFISH_RESTORE") is printed before guestfish exits.

A simple prompt can be set by setting "GUESTFISH_PS1" to an alternate string:

 $ GUESTFISH_PS1='(type a command) '
 $ export GUESTFISH_PS1
 $ guestfish
 [...]
 (type a command) ▂

You can also use special escape sequences, as described in the table below:

\\  A literal backslash character.

\[
\]  (These should only be used in "GUESTFISH_PS1".)

    Place non-printing characters (eg. terminal control codes for colours) between "\[...\]". What this does it to tell the readline(3) library that it should treat this subsequence as zero-width, so that command-line redisplay, editing etc works.

\a  A bell character.

\e  An ASCII ESC (escape) character.

\n  A newline.

\r  A carriage return.

\NNN
    The ASCII character whose code is the octal value NNN.

\xNN
    The ASCII character whose code is the hex value NN.

  EXAMPLES OF PROMPTS
Note that these examples require a terminal that supports ANSI escape codes.

•

     GUESTFISH_PS1='\[\e[1;30m\]><fs>\[\e[0;30m\] '

    A bold black version of the ordinary prompt.

•

     GUESTFISH_PS1='\[\e[1;32m\]><fs>\[\e[0;31m\] '
     GUESTFISH_OUTPUT='\e[0m'
     GUESTFISH_RESTORE="$GUESTFISH_OUTPUT"
     GUESTFISH_INIT='\e[1;34m'

    Blue welcome text, green prompt, red commands, black command output.

WINDOWS 8
Windows 8 "fast startup" can prevent guestfish from mounting NTFS partitions. See "WINDOWS HIBERNATION AND WINDOWS 8 FAST STARTUP" in guestfs(3).

GUESTFISH COMMANDS
The commands in this section are guestfish convenience commands, in other words, they are not part of the guestfs(3) API.

  help
 help
 help cmd
 help -l|--list

Without any parameter, this provides general help.

With a "cmd" parameter, this displays detailed help for that command.

With -l or --list, this list all commands.

  exit

  quit
This exits guestfish. You can also use "^D" key.

  alloc

  allocate
 alloc filename size

This creates an empty (zeroed) file of the given size, and then adds so it can be further examined.

For more advanced image creation, see "disk-create".

Size can be specified using standard suffixes, eg. "1M".

To create a sparse file, use "sparse" instead. To create a prepared disk image, see "PREPARED DISK IMAGES".

  copy-in
 copy-in local [local ...] /remotedir

"copy-in" copies local files or directories recursively into the disk image, placing them in the directory called /remotedir (which must exist). This guestfish meta-command turns into a sequence of "tar-in" and other commands as necessary.

Multiple local files and directories can be specified, but the last parameter must always be a remote directory. Wildcards cannot be used.

  copy-out
 copy-out remote [remote ...] localdir

"copy-out" copies remote files or directories recursively out of the disk image, placing them on the host disk in a local directory called "localdir" (which must exist). This guestfish meta-command turns into a sequence of "download", "tar-out" and other commands as necessary.

Multiple remote files and directories can be specified, but the last parameter must always be a local directory. To download to the current directory, use "." as in:

 copy-out /home .

Wildcards cannot be used in the ordinary command, but you can use them with the help of "glob" like this:

 glob copy-out /home/* .

  delete-event
 delete-event name

Delete the event handler which was previously registered as "name". If multiple event handlers were registered with the same name, they are all deleted.

See also the guestfish commands "event" and "list-events".

  display
 display filename

Use "display" (a graphical display program) to display an image file. It downloads the file, and runs "display" on it.

To use an alternative program, set the "GUESTFISH_DISPLAY_IMAGE" environment variable. For example to use the GNOME display program:

 export GUESTFISH_DISPLAY_IMAGE=eog

See also display(1).

  echo
 echo [params ...]

This echos the parameters to the terminal.

  edit

  vi

  emacs
 edit filename

This is used to edit a file. It downloads the file, edits it locally using your editor, then uploads the result.

The editor is $EDITOR. However if you use the alternate commands "vi" or "emacs" you will get those corresponding editors.

  event
 event name eventset "shell script ..."

Register a shell script fragment which is executed when an event is raised. See "guestfs_set_event_callback" in guestfs(3) for a discussion of the event API in libguestfs.

The "name" parameter is a name that you give to this event handler. It can be any string (even the empty string) and is simply there so you can delete the handler using the guestfish "delete-event" command.

The "eventset" parameter is a comma-separated list of one or more events, for example "close" or "close,trace". The special value "*" means all events.

The third and final parameter is the shell script fragment (or any external command) that is executed when any of the events in the eventset occurs. It is executed using "$SHELL -c", or if $SHELL is not set then /bin/sh -c.

The shell script fragment receives callback parameters as arguments $1, $2 etc. The actual event that was called is available in the environment variable $EVENT.

 event "" close "echo closed"
 event messages appliance,library,trace "echo $@"
 event "" progress "echo progress: $3/$4"
 event "" * "echo $EVENT $@"

See also the guestfish commands "delete-event" and "list-events".

  glob
 glob command args...

Expand wildcards in any paths in the args list, and run "command" repeatedly on each matching path.

See "WILDCARDS AND GLOBBING".

  hexedit
 hexedit <filename|device>
 hexedit <filename|device> <max>
 hexedit <filename|device> <start> <max>

Use hexedit (a hex editor) to edit all or part of a binary file or block device.

This command works by downloading potentially the whole file or device, editing it locally, then uploading it. If the file or device is large, you have to specify which part you wish to edit by using "max" and/or "start" "max" parameters. "start" and "max" are specified in bytes, with the usual modifiers allowed such as "1M" (1 megabyte).

For example to edit the first few sectors of a disk you might do:

 hexedit /dev/sda 1M

which would allow you to edit anywhere within the first megabyte of the disk.

To edit the superblock of an ext2 filesystem on /dev/sda1, do:

 hexedit /dev/sda1 0x400 0x400

(assuming the superblock is in the standard location).

This command requires the external hexedit(1) program. You can specify another program to use by setting the "HEXEDITOR" environment variable.

See also "hexdump".

  lcd
 lcd directory

Change the local directory, ie. the current directory of guestfish itself.

Note that "!cd" won't do what you might expect.

  list-events
 list-events

List the event handlers registered using the guestfish "event" command.

  man

  manual
  man

Opens the manual page for guestfish.

  more

  less
 more filename

 less filename

This is used to view a file.

The default viewer is $PAGER. However if you use the alternate command "less" you will get the "less" command specifically.

  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.

  setenv
  setenv VAR value

Set the environment variable "VAR" to the string "value".

To print the value of an environment variable use a shell command such as:

 !echo $VAR

  sparse
 sparse filename size

This creates an empty sparse file of the given size, and then adds so it can be further examined.

In all respects it works the same as the "alloc" command, except that the image file is allocated sparsely, which means that disk blocks are not assigned to the file until they are needed. Sparse disk files only use space when written to, but they are slower and there is a danger you could run out of real disk space during a write operation.

For more advanced image creation, see "disk-create".

Size can be specified using standard suffixes, eg. "1M".

See also the guestfish "scratch" command.

  supported
 supported

This command returns a list of the optional groups known to the daemon, and indicates which ones are supported by this build of the libguestfs appliance.

See also "AVAILABILITY" in guestfs(3).

  time
 time command args...

Run the command as usual, but print the elapsed time afterwards. This can be useful for benchmarking operations.

  unsetenv
  unsetenv VAR

Remove "VAR" from the environment.

COMMANDS

  acl-delete-def-file
 acl-delete-def-file dir

This function deletes the default POSIX Access Control List (ACL) attached to directory "dir".

This command depends on the feature "acl". See also "feature-available".

  acl-get-file
 acl-get-file path acltype

This function returns the POSIX Access Control List (ACL) attached to "path". The ACL is returned in "long text form" (see acl(5)).

The "acltype" parameter may be:

"access"
    Return the ordinary (access) ACL for any file, directory or other filesystem object.

"default"
    Return the default ACL. Normally this only makes sense if "path" is a directory.

This command depends on the feature "acl". See also "feature-available".

  acl-set-file
 acl-set-file path acltype acl

This function sets the POSIX Access Control List (ACL) attached to "path".

The "acltype" parameter may be:

"access"
    Set the ordinary (access) ACL for any file, directory or other filesystem object.

"default"
    Set the default ACL. Normally this only makes sense if "path" is a directory.

The "acl" parameter is the new ACL in either "long text form" or "short text form" (see acl(5)). The new ACL completely replaces any previous ACL on the file. The ACL must contain the full Unix permissions (eg. "u::rwx,g::rx,o::rx").

If you are specifying individual users or groups, then the mask field is also required (eg. "m::rwx"), followed by the "u:ID:..." and/or "g:ID:..." field(s). A full ACL string might therefore look like this:

 u::rwx,g::rwx,o::rwx,m::rwx,u:500:rwx,g:500:rwx
 \ Unix permissions / \mask/ \      ACL        /

You should use numeric UIDs and GIDs. To map usernames and groupnames to the correct numeric ID in the context of the guest, use the Augeas functions (see "aug-init").

This command depends on the feature "acl". See also "feature-available".

  add-cdrom
 add-cdrom filename

This function adds a virtual CD-ROM disk image to the guest.

The image is added as read-only drive, so this function is equivalent of "add-drive-ro".

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "add-drive-ro" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  add-domain

  domain
 add-domain dom [libvirturi:..] [readonly:true|false] [iface:..] [live:true|false] [allowuuid:true|false] [readonlydisk:..] [cachemode:..] [discard:..] [copyonread:true|false]

This function adds the disk(s) attached to the named libvirt domain "dom". It works by connecting to libvirt, requesting the domain and domain XML from libvirt, parsing it for disks, and calling "add-drive-opts" on each one.

The number of disks added is returned. This operation is atomic: if an error is returned, then no disks are added.

This function does some minimal checks to make sure the libvirt domain is not running (unless "readonly" is true). In a future version we will try to acquire the libvirt lock on each disk.

Disks must be accessible locally. This often means that adding disks from a remote libvirt connection (see https://libvirt.org/remote.html) will fail unless those disks are accessible via the same device path locally too.

The optional "libvirturi" parameter sets the libvirt URI (see https://libvirt.org/uri.html). If this is not set then we connect to the default libvirt URI (or one set through an environment variable, see the libvirt documentation for full details).

The optional "live" flag is ignored in libguestfs ≥ 1.48.

If the "allowuuid" flag is true (default is false) then a UUID may be passed instead of the domain name. The "dom" string is treated as a UUID first and looked up, and if that lookup fails then we treat "dom" as a name as usual.

The optional "readonlydisk" parameter controls what we do for disks which are marked <readonly/> in the libvirt XML. Possible values are:

readonlydisk = "error"
    If "readonly" is false:

    The whole call is aborted with an error if any disk with the <readonly/> flag is found.

    If "readonly" is true:

    Disks with the <readonly/> flag are added read-only.

readonlydisk = "read"
    If "readonly" is false:

    Disks with the <readonly/> flag are added read-only. Other disks are added read/write.

    If "readonly" is true:

    Disks with the <readonly/> flag are added read-only.

readonlydisk = "write" (default)
    If "readonly" is false:

    Disks with the <readonly/> flag are added read/write.

    If "readonly" is true:

    Disks with the <readonly/> flag are added read-only.

readonlydisk = "ignore"
    If "readonly" is true or false:

    Disks with the <readonly/> flag are skipped.

If present, the value of "logical_block_size" attribute of <blockio/> tag in libvirt XML will be passed as "blocksize" parameter to "add-drive-opts".

The other optional parameters are passed directly through to "add-drive-opts".

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  add-drive

  add

  add-drive-opts
 add-drive filename [readonly:true|false] [format:..] [iface:..] [name:..] [label:..] [protocol:..] [server:..] [username:..] [secret:..] [cachemode:..] [discard:..] [copyonread:true|false] [blocksize:N]

This function adds a disk image called filename to the handle. filename may be a regular host file or a host device.

When this function is called before "launch" (the usual case) then the first time you call this function, the disk appears in the API as /dev/sda, the second time as /dev/sdb, and so on.

You don't necessarily need to be root when using libguestfs. However you obviously do need sufficient permissions to access the filename for whatever operations you want to perform (ie. read access if you just want to read the image or write access if you want to modify the image).

This call checks that filename exists.

filename may be the special string "/dev/null". See "NULL DISKS" in guestfs(3).

The optional arguments are:

"readonly"
    If true then the image is treated as read-only. Writes are still allowed, but they are stored in a temporary snapshot overlay which is discarded at the end. The disk that you add is not modified.

"format"
    This forces the image format. If you omit this (or use "add-drive" or "add-drive-ro") then the format is automatically detected. Possible formats include "raw" and "qcow2".

    Automatic detection of the format opens you up to a potential security hole when dealing with untrusted raw-format images. See CVE-2010-3851 and RHBZ#642934. Specifying the format closes this security hole.

"iface"
    This rarely-used option lets you emulate the behaviour of the deprecated "add-drive-with-if" call (q.v.)

"name"
    This field used to be passed as a hint for guest inspection, but it is no longer used.

"label"
    Give the disk a label. The label should be a unique, short string using only ASCII characters "[a-zA-Z]". As well as its usual name in the API (such as /dev/sda), the drive will also be named /dev/disk/guestfs/label.

    See "DISK LABELS" in guestfs(3).

"protocol"
    The optional protocol argument can be used to select an alternate source protocol.

    See also: "REMOTE STORAGE" in guestfs(3).

    "protocol = "file""
        filename is interpreted as a local file or device. This is the default if the optional protocol parameter is omitted.

    "protocol = "ftp"|"ftps"|"http"|"https""
        Connect to a remote FTP or HTTP server. The "server" parameter must also be supplied - see below.

        See also: "FTP AND HTTP" in guestfs(3)

    "protocol = "iscsi""
        Connect to the iSCSI server. The "server" parameter must also be supplied - see below. The "username" parameter may be supplied. See below. The "secret" parameter may be supplied. See below.

        See also: "ISCSI" in guestfs(3).

    "protocol = "nbd""
        Connect to the Network Block Device server. The "server" parameter must also be supplied - see below.

        See also: "NETWORK BLOCK DEVICE" in guestfs(3).

    "protocol = "rbd""
        Connect to the Ceph (librbd/RBD) server. The "server" parameter must also be supplied - see below. The "username" parameter may be supplied. See below. The "secret" parameter may be supplied. See below.

        See also: "CEPH" in guestfs(3).

    "protocol = "ssh""
        Connect to the Secure Shell (ssh) server.

        The "server" parameter must be supplied. The "username" parameter may be supplied. See below.

        See also: "SSH" in guestfs(3).

"server"
    For protocols which require access to a remote server, this is a list of server(s).

     Protocol       Number of servers required
     --------       --------------------------
     file           List must be empty or param not used at all
     ftp|ftps|http|https  Exactly one
     iscsi          Exactly one
     nbd            Exactly one
     rbd            Zero or more
     ssh            Exactly one

    Each list element is a string specifying a server. The string must be in one of the following formats:

     hostname
     hostname:port
     tcp:hostname
     tcp:hostname:port
     unix:/path/to/socket

    If the port number is omitted, then the standard port number for the protocol is used (see /etc/services).

"username"
    For the "ftp", "ftps", "http", "https", "iscsi", "rbd" and "ssh" protocols, this specifies the remote username.

    If not given, then the local username is used for "ssh", and no authentication is attempted for ceph. But note this sometimes may give unexpected results, for example if using the libvirt backend and if the libvirt backend is configured to start the qemu appliance as a special user such as "qemu.qemu". If in doubt, specify the remote username you want.

"secret"
    For the "rbd" protocol only, this specifies the ‘secret’ to use when connecting to the remote device. It must be base64 encoded.

    If not given, then a secret matching the given username will be looked up in the default keychain locations, or if no username is given, then no authentication will be used.

"cachemode"
    Choose whether or not libguestfs will obey sync operations (safe but slow) or not (unsafe but fast). The possible values for this string are:

    "cachemode = "writeback""
        This is the default.

        Write operations in the API do not return until a write(2) call has completed in the host [but note this does not imply that anything gets written to disk].

        Sync operations in the API, including implicit syncs caused by filesystem journalling, will not return until an fdatasync(2) call has completed in the host, indicating that data has been committed to disk.

    "cachemode = "unsafe""
        In this mode, there are no guarantees. Libguestfs may cache anything and ignore sync requests. This is suitable only for scratch or temporary disks.

"discard"
    Enable or disable discard (a.k.a. trim or unmap) support on this drive. If enabled, operations such as "fstrim" will be able to discard / make thin / punch holes in the underlying host file or device.

    Possible discard settings are:

    "discard = "disable""
        Disable discard support. This is the default.

    "discard = "enable""
        Enable discard support. Fail if discard is not possible.

    "discard = "besteffort""
        Enable discard support if possible, but don't fail if it is not supported.

        Since not all backends and not all underlying systems support discard, this is a good choice if you want to use discard if possible, but don't mind if it doesn't work.

"copyonread"
    The boolean parameter "copyonread" enables copy-on-read support. This only affects disk formats which have backing files, and causes reads to be stored in the overlay layer, speeding up multiple reads of the same area of disk.

    The default is false.

"blocksize"
    This parameter sets the sector size of the disk. Possible values are 512 (the default if the parameter is omitted) or 4096. Use 4096 when handling an "Advanced Format" disk that uses 4K sector size (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Format).

    Only a subset of the backends support this parameter (currently only the libvirt and direct backends do).

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  add-drive-ro

  add-ro
 add-drive-ro filename

This function is the equivalent of calling "add-drive-opts" with the optional parameter "GUESTFS_ADD_DRIVE_OPTS_READONLY" set to 1, so the disk is added read-only, with the format being detected automatically.

  add-drive-ro-with-if
 add-drive-ro-with-if filename iface

This is the same as "add-drive-ro" but it allows you to specify the QEMU interface emulation to use at run time. Both the direct and the libvirt backends ignore "iface".

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "add-drive" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  add-drive-scratch

  scratch
 add-drive-scratch size [name:..] [label:..] [blocksize:N]

This command adds a temporary scratch drive to the handle. The "size" parameter is the virtual size (in bytes). The scratch drive is blank initially (all reads return zeroes until you start writing to it). The drive is deleted when the handle is closed.

The optional arguments "name", "label" and "blocksize" are passed through to "add-drive-opts".

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  add-drive-with-if
 add-drive-with-if filename iface

This is the same as "add-drive" but it allows you to specify the QEMU interface emulation to use at run time. Both the direct and the libvirt backends ignore "iface".

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "add-drive" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  aug-clear
 aug-clear augpath

Set the value associated with "path" to "NULL". This is the same as the augtool(1) "clear" command.

  aug-close
 aug-close

Close the current Augeas handle and free up any resources used by it. After calling this, you have to call "aug-init" again before you can use any other Augeas functions.

  aug-defnode
 aug-defnode name expr val

Defines a variable "name" whose value is the result of evaluating "expr".

If "expr" evaluates to an empty nodeset, a node is created, equivalent to calling "aug-set" "expr", "val". "name" will be the nodeset containing that single node.

On success this returns a pair containing the number of nodes in the nodeset, and a boolean flag if a node was created.

  aug-defvar
 aug-defvar name expr

Defines an Augeas variable "name" whose value is the result of evaluating "expr". If "expr" is NULL, then "name" is undefined.

On success this returns the number of nodes in "expr", or 0 if "expr" evaluates to something which is not a nodeset.

  aug-get
 aug-get augpath

Look up the value associated with "path". If "path" matches exactly one node, the "value" is returned.

  aug-init
 aug-init root flags

Create a new Augeas handle for editing configuration files. If there was any previous Augeas handle associated with this guestfs session, then it is closed.

You must call this before using any other "aug-*" commands.

"root" is the filesystem root. "root" must not be NULL, use / instead.

The flags are the same as the flags defined in <augeas.h>, the logical or of the following integers:

"AUG_SAVE_BACKUP" = 1
    Keep the original file with a ".augsave" extension.

"AUG_SAVE_NEWFILE" = 2
    Save changes into a file with extension ".augnew", and do not overwrite original. Overrides "AUG_SAVE_BACKUP".

"AUG_TYPE_CHECK" = 4
    Typecheck lenses.

    This option is only useful when debugging Augeas lenses. Use of this option may require additional memory for the libguestfs appliance. You may need to set the "LIBGUESTFS_MEMSIZE" environment variable or call "set-memsize".

"AUG_NO_STDINC" = 8
    Do not use standard load path for modules.

"AUG_SAVE_NOOP" = 16
    Make save a no-op, just record what would have been changed.

"AUG_NO_LOAD" = 32
    Do not load the tree in "aug-init".

To close the handle, you can call "aug-close".

To find out more about Augeas, see http://augeas.net/.

  aug-insert
 aug-insert augpath label true|false

Create a new sibling "label" for "path", inserting it into the tree before or after "path" (depending on the boolean flag "before").

"path" must match exactly one existing node in the tree, and "label" must be a label, ie. not contain /, "*" or end with a bracketed index "[N]".

  aug-label
 aug-label augpath

The label (name of the last element) of the Augeas path expression "augpath" is returned. "augpath" must match exactly one node, else this function returns an error.

  aug-load
 aug-load

Load files into the tree.

See "aug_load" in the Augeas documentation for the full gory details.

  aug-ls
 aug-ls augpath

This is just a shortcut for listing "aug-match" "path/*" and sorting the resulting nodes into alphabetical order.

  aug-match
 aug-match augpath

Returns a list of paths which match the path expression "path". The returned paths are sufficiently qualified so that they match exactly one node in the current tree.

  aug-mv
 aug-mv src dest

Move the node "src" to "dest". "src" must match exactly one node. "dest" is overwritten if it exists.

  aug-rm
 aug-rm augpath

Remove "path" and all of its children.

On success this returns the number of entries which were removed.

  aug-save
 aug-save

This writes all pending changes to disk.

The flags which were passed to "aug-init" affect exactly how files are saved.

  aug-set
 aug-set augpath val

Set the value associated with "augpath" to "val".

In the Augeas API, it is possible to clear a node by setting the value to NULL. Due to an oversight in the libguestfs API you cannot do that with this call. Instead you must use the "aug-clear" call.

  aug-setm
 aug-setm base sub val

Change multiple Augeas nodes in a single operation. "base" is an expression matching multiple nodes. "sub" is a path expression relative to "base". All nodes matching "base" are found, and then for each node, "sub" is changed to "val". "sub" may also be "NULL" in which case the "base" nodes are modified.

This returns the number of nodes modified.

  aug-transform
 aug-transform lens file [remove:true|false]

Add an Augeas transformation for the specified "lens" so it can handle "file".

If "remove" is true ("false" by default), then the transformation is removed.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  available
 available 'groups ...'

This command is used to check the availability of some groups of functionality in the appliance, which not all builds of the libguestfs appliance will be able to provide.

The libguestfs groups, and the functions that those groups correspond to, are listed in "AVAILABILITY" in guestfs(3). You can also fetch this list at runtime by calling "available-all-groups".

The argument "groups" is a list of group names, eg: "["inotify", "augeas"]" would check for the availability of the Linux inotify functions and Augeas (configuration file editing) functions.

The command returns no error if all requested groups are available.

It fails with an error if one or more of the requested groups is unavailable in the appliance.

If an unknown group name is included in the list of groups then an error is always returned.

Notes:

•   "feature-available" is the same as this call, but with a slightly simpler to use API: that call returns a boolean true/false instead of throwing an error.

•   You must call "launch" before calling this function.

    The reason is because we don't know what groups are supported by the appliance/daemon until it is running and can be queried.

•   If a group of functions is available, this does not necessarily mean that they will work. You still have to check for errors when calling individual API functions even if they are available.

•   It is usually the job of distro packagers to build complete functionality into the libguestfs appliance. Upstream libguestfs, if built from source with all requirements satisfied, will support everything.

•   This call was added in version 1.0.80. In previous versions of libguestfs all you could do would be to speculatively execute a command to find out if the daemon implemented it. See also "version".

See also "filesystem-available".

  available-all-groups
 available-all-groups

This command returns a list of all optional groups that this daemon knows about. Note this returns both supported and unsupported groups. To find out which ones the daemon can actually support you have to call "available" / "feature-available" on each member of the returned list.

See also "available", "feature-available" and "AVAILABILITY" in guestfs(3).

  base64-in
 base64-in (base64file|-) filename

This command uploads base64-encoded data from "base64file" to filename.

Use "-" instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.

  base64-out
 base64-out filename (base64file|-)

This command downloads the contents of filename, writing it out to local file "base64file" encoded as base64.

Use "-" instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.

  blkdiscard
 blkdiscard device

This discards all blocks on the block device "device", giving the free space back to the host.

This operation requires support in libguestfs, the host filesystem, qemu and the host kernel. If this support isn't present it may give an error or even appear to run but do nothing. You must also set the "discard" attribute on the underlying drive (see "add-drive-opts").

This command depends on the feature "blkdiscard". See also "feature-available".

  blkdiscardzeroes
 blkdiscardzeroes device

This call returns true if blocks on "device" that have been discarded by a call to "blkdiscard" are returned as blocks of zero bytes when read the next time.

If it returns false, then it may be that discarded blocks are read as stale or random data.

This command depends on the feature "blkdiscardzeroes". See also "feature-available".

  blkid
 blkid device

This command returns block device attributes for "device". The following fields are usually present in the returned hash. Other fields may also be present.

"UUID"
    The uuid of this device.

"LABEL"
    The label of this device.

"VERSION"
    The version of blkid command.

"TYPE"
    The filesystem type or RAID of this device.

"USAGE"
    The usage of this device, for example "filesystem" or "raid".

  blockdev-flushbufs
 blockdev-flushbufs device

This tells the kernel to flush internal buffers associated with "device".

This uses the blockdev(8) command.

  blockdev-getbsz
 blockdev-getbsz device

This returns the block size of a device.

Note: this is different from both size in blocks and filesystem block size. Also this setting is not really used by anything. You should probably not use it for anything. Filesystems have their own idea about what block size to choose.

This uses the blockdev(8) command.

  blockdev-getro
 blockdev-getro device

Returns a boolean indicating if the block device is read-only (true if read-only, false if not).

This uses the blockdev(8) command.

  blockdev-getsize64
 blockdev-getsize64 device

This returns the size of the device in bytes.

See also "blockdev-getsz".

This uses the blockdev(8) command.

  blockdev-getss
 blockdev-getss device

This returns the size of sectors on a block device. Usually 512, but can be larger for modern devices.

(Note, this is not the size in sectors, use "blockdev-getsz" for that).

This uses the blockdev(8) command.

  blockdev-getsz
 blockdev-getsz device

This returns the size of the device in units of 512-byte sectors (even if the sectorsize isn't 512 bytes ... weird).

See also "blockdev-getss" for the real sector size of the device, and "blockdev-getsize64" for the more useful size in bytes.

This uses the blockdev(8) command.

  blockdev-rereadpt
 blockdev-rereadpt device

Reread the partition table on "device".

This uses the blockdev(8) command.

  blockdev-setbsz
 blockdev-setbsz device blocksize

This call does nothing and has never done anything because of a bug in blockdev. Do not use it.

If you need to set the filesystem block size, use the "blocksize" option of "mkfs".

This function is deprecated. There is no replacement. Consult the API documentation in guestfs(3) for further information.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  blockdev-setra
 blockdev-setra device sectors

Set readahead (in 512-byte sectors) for the device.

This uses the blockdev(8) command.

  blockdev-setro
 blockdev-setro device

Sets the block device named "device" to read-only.

This uses the blockdev(8) command.

  blockdev-setrw
 blockdev-setrw device

Sets the block device named "device" to read-write.

This uses the blockdev(8) command.

  btrfs-balance-cancel
 btrfs-balance-cancel path

Cancel a running balance on a btrfs filesystem.

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-balance-pause
 btrfs-balance-pause path

Pause a running balance on a btrfs filesystem.

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-balance-resume
 btrfs-balance-resume path

Resume a paused balance on a btrfs filesystem.

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-balance-status
 btrfs-balance-status path

Show the status of a running or paused balance on a btrfs filesystem.

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-device-add
 btrfs-device-add 'devices ...' fs

Add the list of device(s) in "devices" to the btrfs filesystem mounted at "fs". If "devices" is an empty list, this does nothing.

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-device-delete
 btrfs-device-delete 'devices ...' fs

Remove the "devices" from the btrfs filesystem mounted at "fs". If "devices" is an empty list, this does nothing.

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-filesystem-balance

  btrfs-balance
 btrfs-filesystem-balance fs

Balance the chunks in the btrfs filesystem mounted at "fs" across the underlying devices.

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-filesystem-defragment
 btrfs-filesystem-defragment path [flush:true|false] [compress:..]

Defragment a file or directory on a btrfs filesystem. compress is one of zlib or lzo.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-filesystem-resize
 btrfs-filesystem-resize mountpoint [size:N]

This command resizes a btrfs filesystem.

Note that unlike other resize calls, the filesystem has to be mounted and the parameter is the mountpoint not the device (this is a requirement of btrfs itself).

The optional parameters are:

"size"
    The new size (in bytes) of the filesystem. If omitted, the filesystem is resized to the maximum size.

See also btrfs(8).

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-filesystem-show
 btrfs-filesystem-show device

Show all the devices where the filesystems in "device" is spanned over.

If not all the devices for the filesystems are present, then this function fails and the "errno" is set to "ENODEV".

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-filesystem-sync
 btrfs-filesystem-sync fs

Force sync on the btrfs filesystem mounted at "fs".

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-fsck
 btrfs-fsck device [superblock:N] [repair:true|false]

Used to check a btrfs filesystem, "device" is the device file where the filesystem is stored.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "btrfs-scrub-full" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-image
 btrfs-image 'source ...' image [compresslevel:N]

This is used to create an image of a btrfs filesystem. All data will be zeroed, but metadata and the like is preserved.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-qgroup-assign
 btrfs-qgroup-assign src dst path

Add qgroup "src" to parent qgroup "dst". This command can group several qgroups into a parent qgroup to share common limit.

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-qgroup-create
 btrfs-qgroup-create qgroupid subvolume

Create a quota group (qgroup) for subvolume at "subvolume".

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-qgroup-destroy
 btrfs-qgroup-destroy qgroupid subvolume

Destroy a quota group.

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-qgroup-limit
 btrfs-qgroup-limit subvolume size

Limit the size of the subvolume with path "subvolume".

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-qgroup-remove
 btrfs-qgroup-remove src dst path

Remove qgroup "src" from the parent qgroup "dst".

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-qgroup-show
 btrfs-qgroup-show path

Show all subvolume quota groups in a btrfs filesystem, including their usages.

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-quota-enable
 btrfs-quota-enable fs true|false

Enable or disable subvolume quota support for filesystem which contains "path".

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-quota-rescan
 btrfs-quota-rescan fs

Trash all qgroup numbers and scan the metadata again with the current config.

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-replace
 btrfs-replace srcdev targetdev mntpoint

Replace device of a btrfs filesystem. On a live filesystem, duplicate the data to the target device which is currently stored on the source device. After completion of the operation, the source device is wiped out and removed from the filesystem.

The "targetdev" needs to be same size or larger than the "srcdev". Devices which are currently mounted are never allowed to be used as the "targetdev".

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-rescue-chunk-recover
 btrfs-rescue-chunk-recover device

Recover the chunk tree of btrfs filesystem by scanning the devices one by one.

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-rescue-super-recover
 btrfs-rescue-super-recover device

Recover bad superblocks from good copies.

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-scrub-cancel
 btrfs-scrub-cancel path

Cancel a running scrub on a btrfs filesystem.

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-scrub-full
 btrfs-scrub-full path [readonly:true|false]

Run a full scrub on a btrfs filesystem and wait for it to finish. If the filesystem has errors this will return an error.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-scrub-resume
 btrfs-scrub-resume path

Resume a previously canceled or interrupted scrub on a btrfs filesystem.

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-scrub-start
 btrfs-scrub-start path

Reads all the data and metadata on the filesystem, and uses checksums and the duplicate copies from RAID storage to identify and repair any corrupt data.

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-scrub-status
 btrfs-scrub-status path

Show status of running or finished scrub on a btrfs filesystem.

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-set-seeding
 btrfs-set-seeding device true|false

Enable or disable the seeding feature of a device that contains a btrfs filesystem.

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-subvolume-create

  btrfs-subvolume-create-opts
 btrfs-subvolume-create dest [qgroupid:..]

Create a btrfs subvolume. The "dest" argument is the destination directory and the name of the subvolume, in the form /path/to/dest/name. The optional parameter "qgroupid" represents the qgroup which the newly created subvolume will be added to.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-subvolume-delete
 btrfs-subvolume-delete subvolume

Delete the named btrfs subvolume or snapshot.

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-subvolume-get-default
 btrfs-subvolume-get-default fs

Get the default subvolume or snapshot of a filesystem mounted at "mountpoint".

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-subvolume-list
 btrfs-subvolume-list fs

List the btrfs snapshots and subvolumes of the btrfs filesystem which is mounted at "fs".

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-subvolume-set-default
 btrfs-subvolume-set-default id fs

Set the subvolume of the btrfs filesystem "fs" which will be mounted by default. See "btrfs-subvolume-list" to get a list of subvolumes.

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-subvolume-show
 btrfs-subvolume-show subvolume

Return detailed information of the subvolume.

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfs-subvolume-snapshot

  btrfs-subvolume-snapshot-opts
 btrfs-subvolume-snapshot source dest [ro:true|false] [qgroupid:..]

Create a snapshot of the btrfs subvolume "source". The "dest" argument is the destination directory and the name of the snapshot, in the form /path/to/dest/name. By default the newly created snapshot is writable, if the value of optional parameter "ro" is true, then a readonly snapshot is created. The optional parameter "qgroupid" represents the qgroup which the newly created snapshot will be added to.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfstune-enable-extended-inode-refs
 btrfstune-enable-extended-inode-refs device

This will Enable extended inode refs.

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfstune-enable-skinny-metadata-extent-refs
 btrfstune-enable-skinny-metadata-extent-refs device

This enable skinny metadata extent refs.

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  btrfstune-seeding
 btrfstune-seeding device true|false

Enable seeding of a btrfs device, this will force a fs readonly so that you can use it to build other filesystems.

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  c-pointer
 c-pointer

In non-C language bindings, this allows you to retrieve the underlying C pointer to the handle (ie. "h *"). The purpose of this is to allow other libraries to interwork with libguestfs.

  canonical-device-name
 canonical-device-name device

This utility function is useful when displaying device names to the user. It takes a number of irregular device names and returns them in a consistent format:

/dev/hdX
/dev/vdX
    These are returned as /dev/sdX. Note this works for device names and partition names. This is approximately the reverse of the algorithm described in "BLOCK DEVICE NAMING" in guestfs(3).

/dev/mapper/VG-LV
/dev/dm-N
    Converted to /dev/VG/LV form using "lvm-canonical-lv-name".

Other strings are returned unmodified.

  cap-get-file
 cap-get-file path

This function returns the Linux capabilities attached to "path". The capabilities set is returned in text form (see cap_to_text(3)).

If no capabilities are attached to a file, an empty string is returned.

This command depends on the feature "linuxcaps". See also "feature-available".

  cap-set-file
 cap-set-file path cap

This function sets the Linux capabilities attached to "path". The capabilities set "cap" should be passed in text form (see cap_from_text(3)).

This command depends on the feature "linuxcaps". See also "feature-available".

  case-sensitive-path
 case-sensitive-path path

This can be used to resolve case insensitive paths on a filesystem which is case sensitive. The use case is to resolve paths which you have read from Windows configuration files or the Windows Registry, to the true path.

The command handles a peculiarity of the Linux ntfs-3g filesystem driver (and probably others), which is that although the underlying filesystem is case-insensitive, the driver exports the filesystem to Linux as case-sensitive.

One consequence of this is that special directories such as C:\windows may appear as /WINDOWS or /windows (or other things) depending on the precise details of how they were created. In Windows itself this would not be a problem.

Bug or feature? You decide: https://www.tuxera.com/community/ntfs-3g-faq/#posixfilenames1

"case-sensitive-path" attempts to resolve the true case of each element in the path. It will return a resolved path if either the full path or its parent directory exists. If the parent directory exists but the full path does not, the case of the parent directory will be correctly resolved, and the remainder appended unmodified. For example, if the file "/Windows/System32/netkvm.sys" exists:

"case-sensitive-path" ("/windows/system32/netkvm.sys")
    "Windows/System32/netkvm.sys"

"case-sensitive-path" ("/windows/system32/NoSuchFile")
    "Windows/System32/NoSuchFile"

"case-sensitive-path" ("/windows/system33/netkvm.sys")
    ERROR

Note: Because of the above behaviour, "case-sensitive-path" cannot be used to check for the existence of a file.

Note: This function does not handle drive names, backslashes etc.

See also "realpath".

  cat
 cat path

Return the contents of the file named "path".

Because, in C, this function returns a "char *", there is no way to differentiate between a "\0" character in a file and end of string. To handle binary files, use the "read-file" or "download" functions.

  checksum
 checksum csumtype path

This call computes the MD5, SHAx or CRC checksum of the file named "path".

The type of checksum to compute is given by the "csumtype" parameter which must have one of the following values:

"crc"
    Compute the cyclic redundancy check (CRC) specified by POSIX for the "cksum" command.

"gost"
"gost12"
    Compute the checksum using GOST R34.11-94 or GOST R34.11-2012 message digest.

"md5"
    Compute the MD5 hash (using the md5sum(1) program).

"sha1"
    Compute the SHA1 hash (using the sha1sum(1) program).

"sha224"
    Compute the SHA224 hash (using the sha224sum(1) program).

"sha256"
    Compute the SHA256 hash (using the sha256sum(1) program).

"sha384"
    Compute the SHA384 hash (using the sha384sum(1) program).

"sha512"
    Compute the SHA512 hash (using the sha512sum(1) program).

The checksum is returned as a printable string.

To get the checksum for a device, use "checksum-device".

To get the checksums for many files, use "checksums-out".

  checksum-device
 checksum-device csumtype device

This call computes the MD5, SHAx or CRC checksum of the contents of the device named "device". For the types of checksums supported see the "checksum" command.

  checksums-out
 checksums-out csumtype directory (sumsfile|-)

This command computes the checksums of all regular files in directory and then emits a list of those checksums to the local output file "sumsfile".

This can be used for verifying the integrity of a virtual machine. However to be properly secure you should pay attention to the output of the checksum command (it uses the ones from GNU coreutils). In particular when the filename is not printable, coreutils uses a special backslash syntax. For more information, see the GNU coreutils info file.

Use "-" instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.

  chmod
 chmod mode path

Change the mode (permissions) of "path" to "mode". Only numeric modes are supported.

Note: When using this command from guestfish, "mode" by default would be decimal, unless you prefix it with 0 to get octal, ie. use 0700 not 700.

The mode actually set is affected by the umask.

  chown
 chown owner group path

Change the file owner to "owner" and group to "group".

Only numeric uid and gid are supported. If you want to use names, you will need to locate and parse the password file yourself (Augeas support makes this relatively easy).

  clear-backend-setting
 clear-backend-setting name

If there is a backend setting string matching "name" or beginning with "name=", then that string is removed from the backend settings.

This call returns the number of strings which were removed (which may be 0, 1 or greater than 1).

See "BACKEND" in guestfs(3), "BACKEND SETTINGS" in guestfs(3).

  clevis-luks-unlock
 clevis-luks-unlock device mapname

This command opens a block device that has been encrypted according to the Linux Unified Key Setup (LUKS) standard, using network-bound disk encryption (NBDE).

"device" is the encrypted block device.

The appliance will connect to the Tang servers noted in the tree of Clevis pins that is bound to a keyslot of the LUKS header. The Clevis pin tree may comprise "sss" (redundancy) pins as internal nodes (optionally), and "tang" pins as leaves. "tpm2" pins are not supported. The appliance unlocks the encrypted block device by combining responses from the Tang servers with metadata from the LUKS header; there is no "key" parameter.

This command will fail if networking has not been enabled for the appliance. Refer to "set-network".

The command creates a new block device called /dev/mapper/mapname. Reads and writes to this block device are decrypted from and encrypted to the underlying "device" respectively. Close the decrypted block device with "cryptsetup-close".

"mapname" cannot be "control" because that name is reserved by device-mapper.

If this block device contains LVM volume groups, then calling "lvm-scan" with the "activate" parameter "true" will make them visible.

Use "list-dm-devices" to list all device mapper devices.

This command depends on the feature "clevisluks". See also "feature-available".

  command
 command 'arguments ...'

This call runs a command from the guest filesystem. The filesystem must be mounted, and must contain a compatible operating system (ie. something Linux, with the same or compatible processor architecture).

The single parameter is an argv-style list of arguments. The first element is the name of the program to run. Subsequent elements are parameters. The list must be non-empty (ie. must contain a program name). Note that the command runs directly, and is not invoked via the shell (see "sh").

The return value is anything printed to stdout by the command.

If the command returns a non-zero exit status, then this function returns an error message. The error message string is the content of stderr from the command.

The $PATH environment variable will contain at least /usr/bin and /bin. If you require a program from another location, you should provide the full path in the first parameter.

Shared libraries and data files required by the program must be available on filesystems which are mounted in the correct places. It is the caller’s responsibility to ensure all filesystems that are needed are mounted at the right locations.

Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. See "PROTOCOL LIMITS" in guestfs(3).

  command-lines
 command-lines 'arguments ...'

This is the same as "command", but splits the result into a list of lines.

See also: "sh-lines"

Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. See "PROTOCOL LIMITS" in guestfs(3).

  command-out
 command-out 'arguments ...' (output|-)

This is the same as "command", but streams the output back, handling the case where the output from the command is larger than the protocol limit.

See also: "sh-out"

Use "-" instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.

  compress-device-out
 compress-device-out ctype device (zdevice|-) [level:N]

This command compresses "device" and writes it out to the local file "zdevice".

The "ctype" and optional "level" parameters have the same meaning as in "compress-out".

Use "-" instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  compress-out
 compress-out ctype file (zfile|-) [level:N]

This command compresses file and writes it out to the local file zfile.

The compression program used is controlled by the "ctype" parameter. Currently this includes: "compress", "gzip", "bzip2", "xz" or "lzop". Some compression types may not be supported by particular builds of libguestfs, in which case you will get an error containing the substring "not supported".

The optional "level" parameter controls compression level. The meaning and default for this parameter depends on the compression program being used.

Use "-" instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  config
 config hvparam hvvalue

This can be used to add arbitrary hypervisor parameters of the form -param value. Actually it’s not quite arbitrary - we prevent you from setting some parameters which would interfere with parameters that we use.

The first character of "hvparam" string must be a "-" (dash).

"hvvalue" can be NULL.

  copy-attributes
 copy-attributes src dest [all:true|false] [mode:true|false] [xattributes:true|false] [ownership:true|false]

Copy the attributes of a path (which can be a file or a directory) to another path.

By default no attribute is copied, so make sure to specify any (or "all" to copy everything).

The optional arguments specify which attributes can be copied:

"mode"
    Copy part of the file mode from "source" to "destination". Only the UNIX permissions and the sticky/setuid/setgid bits can be copied.

"xattributes"
    Copy the Linux extended attributes (xattrs) from "source" to "destination". This flag does nothing if the linuxxattrs feature is not available (see "feature-available").

"ownership"
    Copy the owner uid and the group gid of "source" to "destination".

"all"
    Copy all the attributes from "source" to "destination". Enabling it enables all the other flags, if they are not specified already.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  copy-device-to-device
 copy-device-to-device src dest [srcoffset:N] [destoffset:N] [size:N] [sparse:true|false] [append:true|false]

The four calls "copy-device-to-device", "copy-device-to-file", "copy-file-to-device", and "copy-file-to-file" let you copy from a source (device|file) to a destination (device|file).

Partial copies can be made since you can specify optionally the source offset, destination offset and size to copy. These values are all specified in bytes. If not given, the offsets both default to zero, and the size defaults to copying as much as possible until we hit the end of the source.

The source and destination may be the same object. However overlapping regions may not be copied correctly.

If the destination is a file, it is created if required. If the destination file is not large enough, it is extended.

If the destination is a file and the "append" flag is not set, then the destination file is truncated. If the "append" flag is set, then the copy appends to the destination file. The "append" flag currently cannot be set for devices.

If the "sparse" flag is true then the call avoids writing blocks that contain only zeroes, which can help in some situations where the backing disk is thin-provisioned. Note that unless the target is already zeroed, using this option will result in incorrect copying.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  copy-device-to-file
 copy-device-to-file src dest [srcoffset:N] [destoffset:N] [size:N] [sparse:true|false] [append:true|false]

See "copy-device-to-device" for a general overview of this call.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  copy-file-to-device
 copy-file-to-device src dest [srcoffset:N] [destoffset:N] [size:N] [sparse:true|false] [append:true|false]

See "copy-device-to-device" for a general overview of this call.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  copy-file-to-file
 copy-file-to-file src dest [srcoffset:N] [destoffset:N] [size:N] [sparse:true|false] [append:true|false]

See "copy-device-to-device" for a general overview of this call.

This is not the function you want for copying files. This is for copying blocks within existing files. See "cp", "cp-a" and "mv" for general file copying and moving functions.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  copy-size
 copy-size src dest size

This command copies exactly "size" bytes from one source device or file "src" to another destination device or file "dest".

Note this will fail if the source is too short or if the destination is not large enough.

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "copy-device-to-device" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  cp
 cp src dest

This copies a file from "src" to "dest" where "dest" is either a destination filename or destination directory.

  cp-a
 cp-a src dest

This copies a file or directory from "src" to "dest" recursively using the "cp -a" command.

  cp-r
 cp-r src dest

This copies a file or directory from "src" to "dest" recursively using the "cp -rP" command.

Most users should use "cp-a" instead. This command is useful when you don't want to preserve permissions, because the target filesystem does not support it (primarily when writing to DOS FAT filesystems).

  cpio-out
 cpio-out directory (cpiofile|-) [format:..]

This command packs the contents of directory and downloads it to local file "cpiofile".

The optional "format" parameter can be used to select the format. Only the following formats are currently permitted:

"newc"
    New (SVR4) portable format. This format happens to be compatible with the cpio-like format used by the Linux kernel for initramfs.

    This is the default format.

"crc"
    New (SVR4) portable format with a checksum.

Use "-" instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  cryptsetup-close
 cryptsetup-close device

This closes an encrypted device that was created earlier by "cryptsetup-open". The "device" parameter must be the name of the mapping device (ie. /dev/mapper/mapname) and not the name of the underlying block device.

This command depends on the feature "luks". See also "feature-available".

  cryptsetup-open
 cryptsetup-open device mapname [readonly:true|false] [crypttype:..] [cipher:..]

This command opens a block device which has been encrypted according to the Linux Unified Key Setup (LUKS) standard, Windows BitLocker, or some other types.

"device" is the encrypted block device or partition.

The caller must supply one of the keys associated with the encrypted block device, in the "key" parameter.

This creates a new block device called /dev/mapper/mapname. Reads and writes to this block device are decrypted from and encrypted to the underlying "device" respectively.

"mapname" cannot be "control" because that name is reserved by device-mapper.

If the optional "crypttype" parameter is not present then libguestfs tries to guess the correct type (for example LUKS or BitLocker). However you can override this by specifying one of the following types:

"luks"
    A Linux LUKS device.

"bitlk"
    A Windows BitLocker device.

The optional "readonly" flag, if set to true, creates a read-only mapping.

The optional "cipher" parameter allows specifying which cipher to use.

If this block device contains LVM volume groups, then calling "lvm-scan" with the "activate" parameter "true" will make them visible.

Use "list-dm-devices" to list all device mapper devices.

This command has one or more key or passphrase parameters. Guestfish will prompt for these separately.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

This command depends on the feature "luks". See also "feature-available".

  dd
 dd src dest

This command copies from one source device or file "src" to another destination device or file "dest". Normally you would use this to copy to or from a device or partition, for example to duplicate a filesystem.

If the destination is a device, it must be as large or larger than the source file or device, otherwise the copy will fail. This command cannot do partial copies (see "copy-device-to-device").

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "copy-device-to-device" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  device-index
 device-index device

This function takes a device name (eg. "/dev/sdb") and returns the index of the device in the list of devices.

Index numbers start from 0. The named device must exist, for example as a string returned from "list-devices".

See also "list-devices", "part-to-dev", "device-name".

  device-name
 device-name index

This function takes a device index and returns the device name. For example index 0 will return the string "/dev/sda".

The drive index must have been added to the handle.

See also "list-devices", "part-to-dev", "device-index".

  df
 df

This command runs the df(1) command to report disk space used.

This command is mostly useful for interactive sessions. It is not intended that you try to parse the output string. Use "statvfs" from programs.

  df-h
 df-h

This command runs the "df -h" command to report disk space used in human-readable format.

This command is mostly useful for interactive sessions. It is not intended that you try to parse the output string. Use "statvfs" from programs.

  disk-create
 disk-create filename format size [backingfile:..] [backingformat:..] [preallocation:..] [compat:..] [clustersize:N]

Create a blank disk image called filename (a host file) with format "format" (usually "raw" or "qcow2"). The size is "size" bytes.

If used with the optional "backingfile" parameter, then a snapshot is created on top of the backing file. In this case, "size" must be passed as -1. The size of the snapshot is the same as the size of the backing file, which is discovered automatically. You are encouraged to also pass "backingformat" to describe the format of "backingfile".

If filename refers to a block device, then the device is formatted. The "size" is ignored since block devices have an intrinsic size.

The other optional parameters are:

"preallocation"
    If format is "raw", then this can be either "off" (or "sparse") or "full" to create a sparse or fully allocated file respectively. The default is "off".

    If format is "qcow2", then this can be "off" (or "sparse"), "metadata" or "full". Preallocating metadata can be faster when doing lots of writes, but uses more space. The default is "off".

"compat"
    "qcow2" only: Pass the string 1.1 to use the advanced qcow2 format supported by qemu ≥ 1.1.

"clustersize"
    "qcow2" only: Change the qcow2 cluster size. The default is 65536 (bytes) and this setting may be any power of two between 512 and 2097152.

Note that this call does not add the new disk to the handle. You may need to call "add-drive-opts" separately.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  disk-format
 disk-format filename

Detect and return the format of the disk image called filename. filename can also be a host device, etc. If the format of the image could not be detected, then "unknown" is returned.

Note that detecting the disk format can be insecure under some circumstances. See "CVE-2010-3851" in guestfs(3).

See also: "DISK IMAGE FORMATS" in guestfs(3)

  disk-has-backing-file
 disk-has-backing-file filename

Detect and return whether the disk image filename has a backing file.

Note that detecting disk features can be insecure under some circumstances. See "CVE-2010-3851" in guestfs(3).

  disk-virtual-size
 disk-virtual-size filename

Detect and return the virtual size in bytes of the disk image called filename.

Note that detecting disk features can be insecure under some circumstances. See "CVE-2010-3851" in guestfs(3).

  dmesg
 dmesg

This returns the kernel messages (dmesg(1) output) from the guest kernel. This is sometimes useful for extended debugging of problems.

Another way to get the same information is to enable verbose messages with "set-verbose" or by setting the environment variable "LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG=1" before running the program.

  download
 download remotefilename (filename|-)

Download file remotefilename and save it as filename on the local machine.

filename can also be a named pipe.

See also "upload", "cat".

Use "-" instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.

  download-blocks
 download-blocks device start stop (filename|-) [unallocated:true|false]

Download the data units from start address to stop from the disk partition (eg. /dev/sda1) and save them as filename on the local machine.

The use of this API on sparse disk image formats such as QCOW, may result in large zero-filled files downloaded on the host.

The size of a data unit varies across filesystem implementations. On NTFS filesystems data units are referred as clusters while on ExtX ones they are referred as fragments.

If the optional "unallocated" flag is true (default is false), only the unallocated blocks will be extracted. This is useful to detect hidden data or to retrieve deleted files which data units have not been overwritten yet.

Use "-" instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

This command depends on the feature "sleuthkit". See also "feature-available".

  download-inode
 download-inode device inode (filename|-)

Download a file given its inode from the disk partition (eg. /dev/sda1) and save it as filename on the local machine.

It is not required to mount the disk to run this command.

The command is capable of downloading deleted or inaccessible files.

Use "-" instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.

This command depends on the feature "sleuthkit". See also "feature-available".

  download-offset
 download-offset remotefilename (filename|-) offset size

Download file remotefilename and save it as filename on the local machine.

remotefilename is read for "size" bytes starting at "offset" (this region must be within the file or device).

Note that there is no limit on the amount of data that can be downloaded with this call, unlike with "pread", and this call always reads the full amount unless an error occurs.

See also "download", "pread".

Use "-" instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.

  drop-caches
 drop-caches whattodrop

This instructs the guest kernel to drop its page cache, and/or dentries and inode caches. The parameter "whattodrop" tells the kernel what precisely to drop, see https://linux-mm.org/Drop_Caches

Setting "whattodrop" to 3 should drop everything.

This automatically calls sync(2) before the operation, so that the maximum guest memory is freed.

  du
 du path

This command runs the "du -s" command to estimate file space usage for "path".

"path" can be a file or a directory. If "path" is a directory then the estimate includes the contents of the directory and all subdirectories (recursively).

The result is the estimated size in kilobytes (ie. units of 1024 bytes).

  e2fsck
 e2fsck device [correct:true|false] [forceall:true|false] [forceno:true|false]

This runs the ext2/ext3 filesystem checker on "device". It can take the following optional arguments:

"correct"
    Automatically repair the file system. This option will cause e2fsck to automatically fix any filesystem problems that can be safely fixed without human intervention.

    This option may not be specified at the same time as the "forceall" or "forceno" options.

"forceall"
    Assume an answer of ‘yes’ to all questions; allows e2fsck to be used non-interactively.

    This option may not be specified at the same time as the "correct" or "forceno" options.

"forceno"
    Open the filesystem readonly and assume an answer of ‘no’ to all questions; allows e2fsck to be used non-interactively.

    This option may not be specified at the same time as the "correct" or "forceall" options.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  e2fsck-f
 e2fsck-f device

This runs "e2fsck -p -f device", ie. runs the ext2/ext3 filesystem checker on "device", noninteractively (-p), even if the filesystem appears to be clean (-f).

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "e2fsck" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  echo-daemon
 echo-daemon 'words ...'

This command concatenates the list of "words" passed with single spaces between them and returns the resulting string.

You can use this command to test the connection through to the daemon.

See also "ping-daemon".

  egrep
 egrep regex path

This calls the external egrep(1) program and returns the matching lines.

Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. See "PROTOCOL LIMITS" in guestfs(3).

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "grep" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  egrepi
 egrepi regex path

This calls the external "egrep -i" program and returns the matching lines.

Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. See "PROTOCOL LIMITS" in guestfs(3).

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "grep" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  equal
 equal file1 file2

This compares the two files file1 and file2 and returns true if their content is exactly equal, or false otherwise.

The external cmp(1) program is used for the comparison.

  exists
 exists path

This returns "true" if and only if there is a file, directory (or anything) with the given "path" name.

See also "is-file", "is-dir", "stat".

  extlinux
 extlinux directory

Install the SYSLINUX bootloader on the device mounted at directory. Unlike "syslinux" which requires a FAT filesystem, this can be used on an ext2/3/4 or btrfs filesystem.

The directory parameter can be either a mountpoint, or a directory within the mountpoint.

You also have to mark the partition as "active" ("part-set-bootable") and a Master Boot Record must be installed (eg. using "pwrite-device") on the first sector of the whole disk. The SYSLINUX package comes with some suitable Master Boot Records. See the extlinux(1) man page for further information.

Additional configuration can be supplied to SYSLINUX by placing a file called extlinux.conf on the filesystem under directory. For further information about the contents of this file, see extlinux(1).

See also "syslinux".

This command depends on the feature "extlinux". See also "feature-available".

  f2fs-expand
 f2fs-expand device

This expands a f2fs filesystem to match the size of the underlying device.

This command depends on the feature "f2fs". See also "feature-available".

  fallocate
 fallocate path len

This command preallocates a file (containing zero bytes) named "path" of size "len" bytes. If the file exists already, it is overwritten.

Do not confuse this with the guestfish-specific "alloc" command which allocates a file in the host and attaches it as a device.

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "fallocate64" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  fallocate64
 fallocate64 path len

This command preallocates a file (containing zero bytes) named "path" of size "len" bytes. If the file exists already, it is overwritten.

Note that this call allocates disk blocks for the file. To create a sparse file use "truncate-size" instead.

The deprecated call "fallocate" does the same, but owing to an oversight it only allowed 30 bit lengths to be specified, effectively limiting the maximum size of files created through that call to 1GB.

Do not confuse this with the guestfish-specific "alloc" and "sparse" commands which create a file in the host and attach it as a device.

  feature-available
 feature-available 'groups ...'

This is the same as "available", but unlike that call it returns a simple true/false boolean result, instead of throwing an exception if a feature is not found. For other documentation see "available".

  fgrep
 fgrep pattern path

This calls the external fgrep(1) program and returns the matching lines.

Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. See "PROTOCOL LIMITS" in guestfs(3).

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "grep" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  fgrepi
 fgrepi pattern path

This calls the external "fgrep -i" program and returns the matching lines.

Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. See "PROTOCOL LIMITS" in guestfs(3).

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "grep" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  file
 file path

This call uses the standard file(1) command to determine the type or contents of the file.

This call will also transparently look inside various types of compressed file.

The filename is not prepended to the output (like the file command -b option).

The output depends on the output of the underlying file(1) command and it can change in future in ways beyond our control. In other words, the output is not guaranteed by the ABI.

See also: file(1), "vfs-type", "lstat", "is-file", "is-blockdev" (etc), "is-zero".

  file-architecture
 file-architecture filename

This detects the architecture of the binary filename, and returns it if known.

Currently defined architectures are:

"aarch64"
    64 bit ARM.

"arm"
    32 bit ARM.

"i386"
    This string is returned for all 32 bit i386, i486, i586, i686 binaries irrespective of the precise processor requirements of the binary.

"ia64"
    Intel Itanium.

"ppc"
    32 bit Power PC.

"ppc64"
    64 bit Power PC (big endian).

"ppc64le"
    64 bit Power PC (little endian).

"loongarch64"
    64 bit LoongArch64 (little endian).

"riscv32"
"riscv64"
"riscv128"
    RISC-V 32-, 64- or 128-bit variants.

"s390"
    31 bit IBM S/390.

"s390x"
    64 bit IBM S/390.

"sparc"
    32 bit SPARC.

"sparc64"
    64 bit SPARC V9 and above.

"x86_64"
    64 bit x86-64.

Libguestfs may return other architecture strings in future.

The function works on at least the following types of files:

•   many types of Un*x and Linux binary

•   many types of Un*x and Linux shared library

•   Windows Win32 and Win64 binaries

•   Windows Win32 and Win64 DLLs

    Win32 binaries and DLLs return "i386".

    Win64 binaries and DLLs return "x86_64".

•   Linux kernel modules

•   Linux new-style initrd images

•   some non-x86 Linux vmlinuz kernels

What it can't do currently:

•   static libraries (libfoo.a)

•   Linux old-style initrd as compressed ext2 filesystem (RHEL 3)

•   x86 Linux vmlinuz kernels

    x86 vmlinuz images (bzImage format) consist of a mix of 16-, 32- and compressed code, and are horribly hard to unpack. If you want to find the architecture of a kernel, use the architecture of the associated initrd or kernel module(s) instead.

  filesize
 filesize file

This command returns the size of file in bytes.

To get other stats about a file, use "stat", "lstat", "is-dir", "is-file" etc. To get the size of block devices, use "blockdev-getsize64".

  filesystem-available
 filesystem-available filesystem

Check whether libguestfs supports the named filesystem. The argument "filesystem" is a filesystem name, such as "ext3".

You must call "launch" before using this command.

This is mainly useful as a negative test. If this returns true, it doesn't mean that a particular filesystem can be created or mounted, since filesystems can fail for other reasons such as it being a later version of the filesystem, or having incompatible features, or lacking the right mkfs.<fs> tool.

See also "available", "feature-available", "AVAILABILITY" in guestfs(3).

  filesystem-walk
 filesystem-walk device

Walk through the internal structures of a disk partition (eg. /dev/sda1) in order to return a list of all the files and directories stored within.

It is not necessary to mount the disk partition to run this command.

All entries in the filesystem are returned. This function can list deleted or unaccessible files. The entries are not sorted.

The "tsk_dirent" structure contains the following fields.

"tsk_inode"
    Filesystem reference number of the node. It might be 0 if the node has been deleted.

"tsk_type"
    Basic file type information. See below for a detailed list of values.

"tsk_size"
    File size in bytes. It might be -1 if the node has been deleted.

"tsk_name"
    The file path relative to its directory.

"tsk_flags"
    Bitfield containing extra information regarding the entry. It contains the logical OR of the following values:

    0x0001
        If set to 1, the file is allocated and visible within the filesystem. Otherwise, the file has been deleted. Under certain circumstances, the function "download_inode" can be used to recover deleted files.

    0x0002
        Filesystem such as NTFS and Ext2 or greater, separate the file name from the metadata structure. The bit is set to 1 when the file name is in an unallocated state and the metadata structure is in an allocated one. This generally implies the metadata has been reallocated to a new file. Therefore, information such as file type, file size, timestamps, number of links and symlink target might not correspond with the ones of the original deleted entry.

    0x0004
        The bit is set to 1 when the file is compressed using filesystem native compression support (NTFS). The API is not able to detect application level compression.

"tsk_atime_sec"
"tsk_atime_nsec"
"tsk_mtime_sec"
"tsk_mtime_nsec"
"tsk_ctime_sec"
"tsk_ctime_nsec"
"tsk_crtime_sec"
"tsk_crtime_nsec"
    Respectively, access, modification, last status change and creation time in Unix format in seconds and nanoseconds.

"tsk_nlink"
    Number of file names pointing to this entry.

"tsk_link"
    If the entry is a symbolic link, this field will contain the path to the target file.

The "tsk_type" field will contain one of the following characters:

'b' Block special

'c' Char special

'd' Directory

'f' FIFO (named pipe)

'l' Symbolic link

'r' Regular file

's' Socket

'h' Shadow inode (Solaris)

'w' Whiteout inode (BSD)

'u' Unknown file type

This command depends on the feature "libtsk". See also "feature-available".

  fill
 fill c len path

This command creates a new file called "path". The initial content of the file is "len" octets of "c", where "c" must be a number in the range "[0..255]".

To fill a file with zero bytes (sparsely), it is much more efficient to use "truncate-size". To create a file with a pattern of repeating bytes use "fill-pattern".

  fill-dir
 fill-dir dir nr

This function, useful for testing filesystems, creates "nr" empty files in the directory "dir" with names 00000000 through "nr-1" (ie. each file name is 8 digits long padded with zeroes).

  fill-pattern
 fill-pattern pattern len path

This function is like "fill" except that it creates a new file of length "len" containing the repeating pattern of bytes in "pattern". The pattern is truncated if necessary to ensure the length of the file is exactly "len" bytes.

  find
 find directory

This command lists out all files and directories, recursively, starting at directory. It is essentially equivalent to running the shell command "find directory -print" but some post-processing happens on the output, described below.

This returns a list of strings without any prefix. Thus if the directory structure was:

 /tmp/a
 /tmp/b
 /tmp/c/d

then the returned list from "find" /tmp would be 4 elements:

 a
 b
 c
 c/d

If directory is not a directory, then this command returns an error.

The returned list is sorted.

  find0
 find0 directory (files|-)

This command lists out all files and directories, recursively, starting at directory, placing the resulting list in the external file called files.

This command works the same way as "find" with the following exceptions:

•   The resulting list is written to an external file.

•   Items (filenames) in the result are separated by "\0" characters. See find(1) option -print0.

•   The result list is not sorted.

Use "-" instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.

  find-inode
 find-inode device inode

Searches all the entries associated with the given inode.

For each entry, a "tsk_dirent" structure is returned. See "filesystem_walk" for more information about "tsk_dirent" structures.

This command depends on the feature "libtsk". See also "feature-available".

  findfs-label
 findfs-label label

This command searches the filesystems and returns the one which has the given label. An error is returned if no such filesystem can be found.

To find the label of a filesystem, use "vfs-label".

  findfs-partlabel
 findfs-partlabel label

This command searches the partitions and returns the one which has the given label. An error is returned if no such partition can be found.

To find the label of a partition, use "blkid" ("PART_ENTRY_NAME").

  findfs-partuuid
 findfs-partuuid uuid

This command searches the partitions and returns the one which has the given partition UUID. An error is returned if no such partition can be found.

To find the UUID of a partition, use "blkid" ("PART_ENTRY_UUID").

  findfs-uuid
 findfs-uuid uuid

This command searches the filesystems and returns the one which has the given UUID. An error is returned if no such filesystem can be found.

To find the UUID of a filesystem, use "vfs-uuid".

  fsck
 fsck fstype device

This runs the filesystem checker (fsck) on "device" which should have filesystem type "fstype".

The returned integer is the status. See fsck(8) for the list of status codes from "fsck".

Notes:

•   Multiple status codes can be summed together.

•   A non-zero return code can mean "success", for example if errors have been corrected on the filesystem.

•   Checking or repairing NTFS volumes is not supported (by linux-ntfs).

This command is entirely equivalent to running "fsck -a -t fstype device".

  fstrim
 fstrim mountpoint [offset:N] [length:N] [minimumfreeextent:N]

Trim the free space in the filesystem mounted on "mountpoint". The filesystem must be mounted read-write.

The filesystem contents are not affected, but any free space in the filesystem is "trimmed", that is, given back to the host device, thus making disk images more sparse, allowing unused space in qcow2 files to be reused, etc.

This operation requires support in libguestfs, the mounted filesystem, the host filesystem, qemu and the host kernel. If this support isn't present it may give an error or even appear to run but do nothing.

In the case where the kernel vfs driver does not support trimming, this call will fail with errno set to "ENOTSUP". Currently this happens when trying to trim FAT filesystems.

See also "zero-free-space". That is a slightly different operation that turns free space in the filesystem into zeroes. It is valid to call "fstrim" either instead of, or after calling "zero-free-space".

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

This command depends on the feature "fstrim". See also "feature-available".

  get-append
 get-append

Return the additional kernel options which are added to the libguestfs appliance kernel command line.

If "NULL" then no options are added.

  get-attach-method
 get-attach-method

Return the current backend.

See "set-backend" and "BACKEND" in guestfs(3).

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "get-backend" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  get-autosync
 get-autosync

Get the autosync flag.

  get-backend
 get-backend

Return the current backend.

This handle property was previously called the "attach method".

See "set-backend" and "BACKEND" in guestfs(3).

  get-backend-setting
 get-backend-setting name

Find a backend setting string which is either "name" or begins with "name=". If "name", this returns the string "1". If "name=", this returns the part after the equals sign (which may be an empty string).

If no such setting is found, this function throws an error. The errno (see "last-errno") will be "ESRCH" in this case.

See "BACKEND" in guestfs(3), "BACKEND SETTINGS" in guestfs(3).

  get-backend-settings
 get-backend-settings

Return the current backend settings.

This call returns all backend settings strings. If you want to find a single backend setting, see "get-backend-setting".

See "BACKEND" in guestfs(3), "BACKEND SETTINGS" in guestfs(3).

  get-cachedir
 get-cachedir

Get the directory used by the handle to store the appliance cache.

  get-direct
 get-direct

Return the direct appliance mode flag.

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "internal-get-console-socket" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  get-e2attrs
 get-e2attrs file

This returns the file attributes associated with file.

The attributes are a set of bits associated with each inode which affect the behaviour of the file. The attributes are returned as a string of letters (described below). The string may be empty, indicating that no file attributes are set for this file.

These attributes are only present when the file is located on an ext2/3/4 filesystem. Using this call on other filesystem types will result in an error.

The characters (file attributes) in the returned string are currently:

'A' When the file is accessed, its atime is not modified.

'a' The file is append-only.

'c' The file is compressed on-disk.

'D' (Directories only.) Changes to this directory are written synchronously to disk.

'd' The file is not a candidate for backup (see dump(8)).

'E' The file has compression errors.

'e' The file is using extents.

'h' The file is storing its blocks in units of the filesystem blocksize instead of sectors.

'I' (Directories only.) The directory is using hashed trees.

'i' The file is immutable. It cannot be modified, deleted or renamed. No link can be created to this file.

'j' The file is data-journaled.

's' When the file is deleted, all its blocks will be zeroed.

'S' Changes to this file are written synchronously to disk.

'T' (Directories only.) This is a hint to the block allocator that subdirectories contained in this directory should be spread across blocks. If not present, the block allocator will try to group subdirectories together.

't' For a file, this disables tail-merging. (Not used by upstream implementations of ext2.)

'u' When the file is deleted, its blocks will be saved, allowing the file to be undeleted.

'X' The raw contents of the compressed file may be accessed.

'Z' The compressed file is dirty.

More file attributes may be added to this list later. Not all file attributes may be set for all kinds of files. For detailed information, consult the chattr(1) man page.

See also "set-e2attrs".

Don't confuse these attributes with extended attributes (see "getxattr").

  get-e2generation
 get-e2generation file

This returns the ext2 file generation of a file. The generation (which used to be called the "version") is a number associated with an inode. This is most commonly used by NFS servers.

The generation is only present when the file is located on an ext2/3/4 filesystem. Using this call on other filesystem types will result in an error.

See "set-e2generation".

  get-e2label
 get-e2label device

This returns the ext2/3/4 filesystem label of the filesystem on "device".

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "vfs-label" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  get-e2uuid
 get-e2uuid device

This returns the ext2/3/4 filesystem UUID of the filesystem on "device".

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "vfs-uuid" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  get-hv
 get-hv

Return the current hypervisor binary.

This is always non-NULL. If it wasn't set already, then this will return the default qemu binary name.

  get-identifier
 get-identifier

Get the handle identifier. See "set-identifier".

  get-libvirt-requested-credential-challenge
 get-libvirt-requested-credential-challenge index

Get the challenge (provided by libvirt) for the "index"'th requested credential. If libvirt did not provide a challenge, this returns the empty string "".

See "LIBVIRT AUTHENTICATION" in guestfs(3) for documentation and example code.

  get-libvirt-requested-credential-defresult
 get-libvirt-requested-credential-defresult index

Get the default result (provided by libvirt) for the "index"'th requested credential. If libvirt did not provide a default result, this returns the empty string "".

See "LIBVIRT AUTHENTICATION" in guestfs(3) for documentation and example code.

  get-libvirt-requested-credential-prompt
 get-libvirt-requested-credential-prompt index

Get the prompt (provided by libvirt) for the "index"'th requested credential. If libvirt did not provide a prompt, this returns the empty string "".

See "LIBVIRT AUTHENTICATION" in guestfs(3) for documentation and example code.

  get-libvirt-requested-credentials
 get-libvirt-requested-credentials

This should only be called during the event callback for events of type "GUESTFS_EVENT_LIBVIRT_AUTH".

Return the list of credentials requested by libvirt. Possible values are a subset of the strings provided when you called "set-libvirt-supported-credentials".

See "LIBVIRT AUTHENTICATION" in guestfs(3) for documentation and example code.

  get-memsize
 get-memsize

This gets the memory size in megabytes allocated to the hypervisor.

If "set-memsize" was not called on this handle, and if "LIBGUESTFS_MEMSIZE" was not set, then this returns the compiled-in default value for memsize.

For more information on the architecture of libguestfs, see guestfs(3).

  get-network
 get-network

This returns the enable network flag.

  get-path
 get-path

Return the current search path.

This is always non-NULL. If it wasn't set already, then this will return the default path.

  get-pgroup
 get-pgroup

This returns the process group flag.

  get-pid

  pid
 get-pid

Return the process ID of the hypervisor. If there is no hypervisor running, then this will return an error.

This is an internal call used for debugging and testing.

  get-program
 get-program

Get the program name. See "set-program".

  get-qemu
 get-qemu

Return the current hypervisor binary (usually qemu).

This is always non-NULL. If it wasn't set already, then this will return the default qemu binary name.

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "get-hv" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  get-recovery-proc
 get-recovery-proc

Return the recovery process enabled flag.

  get-selinux
 get-selinux

This returns the current setting of the selinux flag which is passed to the appliance at boot time. See "set-selinux".

For more information on the architecture of libguestfs, see guestfs(3).

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "selinux-relabel" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  get-smp
 get-smp

This returns the number of virtual CPUs assigned to the appliance.

  get-sockdir
 get-sockdir

Get the directory used by the handle to store temporary socket and PID files.

This is different from "get-tmpdir", as we need shorter paths for sockets (due to the limited buffers of filenames for UNIX sockets), and "get-tmpdir" may be too long for them. Furthermore, sockets and PID files must be accessible to such background services started by libguestfs that may not have permission to access the temporary directory returned by "get-tmpdir".

The environment variable "XDG_RUNTIME_DIR" controls the default value: If "XDG_RUNTIME_DIR" is set, then that is the default. Else /tmp is the default.

  get-tmpdir
 get-tmpdir

Get the directory used by the handle to store temporary files.

  get-trace
 get-trace

Return the command trace flag.

  get-umask
 get-umask

Return the current umask. By default the umask is 022 unless it has been set by calling "umask".

  get-verbose
 get-verbose

This returns the verbose messages flag.

  getcon
 getcon

This gets the SELinux security context of the daemon.

See the documentation about SELINUX in guestfs(3), and "setcon"

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "selinux-relabel" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

This command depends on the feature "selinux". See also "feature-available".

  getxattr
 getxattr path name

Get a single extended attribute from file "path" named "name". This call follows symlinks. If you want to lookup an extended attribute for the symlink itself, use "lgetxattr".

Normally it is better to get all extended attributes from a file in one go by calling "getxattrs". However some Linux filesystem implementations are buggy and do not provide a way to list out attributes. For these filesystems (notably ntfs-3g) you have to know the names of the extended attributes you want in advance and call this function.

Extended attribute values are blobs of binary data. If there is no extended attribute named "name", this returns an error.

See also: "getxattrs", "lgetxattr", attr(5).

This command depends on the feature "linuxxattrs". See also "feature-available".

  getxattrs
 getxattrs path

This call lists the extended attributes of the file or directory "path".

At the system call level, this is a combination of the listxattr(2) and getxattr(2) calls.

See also: "lgetxattrs", attr(5).

This command depends on the feature "linuxxattrs". See also "feature-available".

  glob-expand

  glob-expand-opts
 glob-expand pattern [directoryslash:true|false]

This command searches for all the pathnames matching "pattern" according to the wildcard expansion rules used by the shell.

If no paths match, then this returns an empty list (note: not an error).

It is just a wrapper around the C glob(3) function with flags "GLOB_MARK|GLOB_BRACE". See that manual page for more details.

"directoryslash" controls whether use the "GLOB_MARK" flag for glob(3), and it defaults to true. It can be explicitly set as off to return no trailing slashes in filenames of directories.

Notice that there is no equivalent command for expanding a device name (eg. /dev/sd*). Use "list-devices", "list-partitions" etc functions instead.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  grep

  grep-opts
 grep regex path [extended:true|false] [fixed:true|false] [insensitive:true|false] [compressed:true|false]

This calls the external grep(1) program and returns the matching lines.

The optional flags are:

"extended"
    Use extended regular expressions. This is the same as using the -E flag.

"fixed"
    Match fixed (don't use regular expressions). This is the same as using the -F flag.

"insensitive"
    Match case-insensitive. This is the same as using the -i flag.

"compressed"
    Use zgrep(1) instead of grep(1). This allows the input to be compress- or gzip-compressed.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. See "PROTOCOL LIMITS" in guestfs(3).

  grepi
 grepi regex path

This calls the external "grep -i" program and returns the matching lines.

Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. See "PROTOCOL LIMITS" in guestfs(3).

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "grep" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  grub-install
 grub-install root device

This command installs GRUB 1 (the Grand Unified Bootloader) on "device", with the root directory being "root".

Notes:

•   There is currently no way in the API to install grub2, which is used by most modern Linux guests. It is possible to run the grub2 command from the guest, although see the caveats in "RUNNING COMMANDS" in guestfs(3).

•   This uses grub-install(8) from the host. Unfortunately grub is not always compatible with itself, so this only works in rather narrow circumstances. Careful testing with each guest version is advisable.

•   If grub-install reports the error "No suitable drive was found in the generated device map." it may be that you need to create a /boot/grub/device.map file first that contains the mapping between grub device names and Linux device names. It is usually sufficient to create a file containing:

     (hd0) /dev/vda

    replacing /dev/vda with the name of the installation device.

This command depends on the feature "grub". See also "feature-available".

  head
 head path

This command returns up to the first 10 lines of a file as a list of strings.

Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. See "PROTOCOL LIMITS" in guestfs(3).

  head-n
 head-n nrlines path

If the parameter "nrlines" is a positive number, this returns the first "nrlines" lines of the file "path".

If the parameter "nrlines" is a negative number, this returns lines from the file "path", excluding the last "nrlines" lines.

If the parameter "nrlines" is zero, this returns an empty list.

Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. See "PROTOCOL LIMITS" in guestfs(3).

  hexdump
 hexdump path

This runs "hexdump -C" on the given "path". The result is the human-readable, canonical hex dump of the file.

Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. See "PROTOCOL LIMITS" in guestfs(3).

  hivex-close
 hivex-close

Close the current hivex handle.

This is a wrapper around the hivex(3) call of the same name.

This command depends on the feature "hivex". See also "feature-available".

  hivex-commit
 hivex-commit filename

Commit (write) changes to the hive.

If the optional filename parameter is null, then the changes are written back to the same hive that was opened. If this is not null then they are written to the alternate filename given and the original hive is left untouched.

This is a wrapper around the hivex(3) call of the same name.

This command depends on the feature "hivex". See also "feature-available".

  hivex-node-add-child
 hivex-node-add-child parent name

Add a child node to "parent" named "name".

This is a wrapper around the hivex(3) call of the same name.

This command depends on the feature "hivex". See also "feature-available".

  hivex-node-children
 hivex-node-children nodeh

Return the list of nodes which are subkeys of "nodeh".

This is a wrapper around the hivex(3) call of the same name.

This command depends on the feature "hivex". See also "feature-available".

  hivex-node-delete-child
 hivex-node-delete-child nodeh

Delete "nodeh", recursively if necessary.

This is a wrapper around the hivex(3) call of the same name.

This command depends on the feature "hivex". See also "feature-available".

  hivex-node-get-child
 hivex-node-get-child nodeh name

Return the child of "nodeh" with the name "name", if it exists. This can return 0 meaning the name was not found.

This is a wrapper around the hivex(3) call of the same name.

This command depends on the feature "hivex". See also "feature-available".

  hivex-node-get-value
 hivex-node-get-value nodeh key

Return the value attached to "nodeh" which has the name "key", if it exists. This can return 0 meaning the key was not found.

This is a wrapper around the hivex(3) call of the same name.

This command depends on the feature "hivex". See also "feature-available".

  hivex-node-name
 hivex-node-name nodeh

Return the name of "nodeh".

This is a wrapper around the hivex(3) call of the same name.

This command depends on the feature "hivex". See also "feature-available".

  hivex-node-parent
 hivex-node-parent nodeh

Return the parent node of "nodeh".

This is a wrapper around the hivex(3) call of the same name.

This command depends on the feature "hivex". See also "feature-available".

  hivex-node-set-value
 hivex-node-set-value nodeh key t val

Set or replace a single value under the node "nodeh". The "key" is the name, "t" is the type, and "val" is the data.

This is a wrapper around the hivex(3) call of the same name.

This command depends on the feature "hivex". See also "feature-available".

  hivex-node-values
 hivex-node-values nodeh

Return the array of (key, datatype, data) tuples attached to "nodeh".

This is a wrapper around the hivex(3) call of the same name.

This command depends on the feature "hivex". See also "feature-available".

  hivex-open
 hivex-open filename [verbose:true|false] [debug:true|false] [write:true|false] [unsafe:true|false]

Open the Windows Registry hive file named filename. If there was any previous hivex handle associated with this guestfs session, then it is closed.

This is a wrapper around the hivex(3) call of the same name.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

This command depends on the feature "hivex". See also "feature-available".

  hivex-root
 hivex-root

Return the root node of the hive.

This is a wrapper around the hivex(3) call of the same name.

This command depends on the feature "hivex". See also "feature-available".

  hivex-value-key
 hivex-value-key valueh

Return the key (name) field of a (key, datatype, data) tuple.

This is a wrapper around the hivex(3) call of the same name.

This command depends on the feature "hivex". See also "feature-available".

  hivex-value-string
 hivex-value-string valueh

This calls "hivex-value-value" (which returns the data field from a hivex value tuple). It then assumes that the field is a UTF-16LE string and converts the result to UTF-8 (or if this is not possible, it returns an error).

This is useful for reading strings out of the Windows registry. However it is not foolproof because the registry is not strongly-typed and fields can contain arbitrary or unexpected data.

This command depends on the feature "hivex". See also "feature-available".

  hivex-value-type
 hivex-value-type valueh

Return the data type field from a (key, datatype, data) tuple.

This is a wrapper around the hivex(3) call of the same name.

This command depends on the feature "hivex". See also "feature-available".

  hivex-value-utf8
 hivex-value-utf8 valueh

This calls "hivex-value-value" (which returns the data field from a hivex value tuple). It then assumes that the field is a UTF-16LE string and converts the result to UTF-8 (or if this is not possible, it returns an error).

This is useful for reading strings out of the Windows registry. However it is not foolproof because the registry is not strongly-typed and fields can contain arbitrary or unexpected data.

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "hivex-value-string" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

This command depends on the feature "hivex". See also "feature-available".

  hivex-value-value
 hivex-value-value valueh

Return the data field of a (key, datatype, data) tuple.

This is a wrapper around the hivex(3) call of the same name.

See also: "hivex-value-utf8".

This command depends on the feature "hivex". See also "feature-available".

  initrd-cat
 initrd-cat initrdpath filename

This command unpacks the file filename from the initrd file called initrdpath. The filename must be given without the initial / character.

For example, in guestfish you could use the following command to examine the boot script (usually called /init) contained in a Linux initrd or initramfs image:

 initrd-cat /boot/initrd-<version>.img init

See also "initrd-list".

Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. See "PROTOCOL LIMITS" in guestfs(3).

  initrd-list
 initrd-list path

This command lists out files contained in an initrd.

The files are listed without any initial / character. The files are listed in the order they appear (not necessarily alphabetical). Directory names are listed as separate items.

Old Linux kernels (2.4 and earlier) used a compressed ext2 filesystem as initrd. We only support the newer initramfs format (compressed cpio files).

  inotify-add-watch
 inotify-add-watch path mask

Watch "path" for the events listed in "mask".

Note that if "path" is a directory then events within that directory are watched, but this does not happen recursively (in subdirectories).

Note for non-C or non-Linux callers: the inotify events are defined by the Linux kernel ABI and are listed in /usr/include/sys/inotify.h.

This command depends on the feature "inotify". See also "feature-available".

  inotify-close
 inotify-close

This closes the inotify handle which was previously opened by inotify_init. It removes all watches, throws away any pending events, and deallocates all resources.

This command depends on the feature "inotify". See also "feature-available".

  inotify-files
 inotify-files

This function is a helpful wrapper around "inotify-read" which just returns a list of pathnames of objects that were touched. The returned pathnames are sorted and deduplicated.

This command depends on the feature "inotify". See also "feature-available".

  inotify-init
 inotify-init maxevents

This command creates a new inotify handle. The inotify subsystem can be used to notify events which happen to objects in the guest filesystem.

"maxevents" is the maximum number of events which will be queued up between calls to "inotify-read" or "inotify-files". If this is passed as 0, then the kernel (or previously set) default is used. For Linux 2.6.29 the default was 16384 events. Beyond this limit, the kernel throws away events, but records the fact that it threw them away by setting a flag "IN_Q_OVERFLOW" in the returned structure list (see "inotify-read").

Before any events are generated, you have to add some watches to the internal watch list. See: "inotify-add-watch" and "inotify-rm-watch".

Queued up events should be read periodically by calling "inotify-read" (or "inotify-files" which is just a helpful wrapper around "inotify-read"). If you don't read the events out often enough then you risk the internal queue overflowing.

The handle should be closed after use by calling "inotify-close". This also removes any watches automatically.

See also inotify(7) for an overview of the inotify interface as exposed by the Linux kernel, which is roughly what we expose via libguestfs. Note that there is one global inotify handle per libguestfs instance.

This command depends on the feature "inotify". See also "feature-available".

  inotify-read
 inotify-read

Return the complete queue of events that have happened since the previous read call.

If no events have happened, this returns an empty list.

Note: In order to make sure that all events have been read, you must call this function repeatedly until it returns an empty list. The reason is that the call will read events up to the maximum appliance-to-host message size and leave remaining events in the queue.

This command depends on the feature "inotify". See also "feature-available".

  inotify-rm-watch
 inotify-rm-watch wd

Remove a previously defined inotify watch. See "inotify-add-watch".

This command depends on the feature "inotify". See also "feature-available".

  inspect-get-arch
 inspect-get-arch root

This returns the architecture of the inspected operating system. The possible return values are listed under "file-architecture".

If the architecture could not be determined, then the string "unknown" is returned.

Please read "INSPECTION" in guestfs(3) for more details.

  inspect-get-build-id
 inspect-get-build-id root

This returns the build ID of the system, or the string "unknown" if the system does not have a build ID.

For Windows, this gets the build number. Although it is returned as a string, it is (so far) always a number. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Microsoft_Windows_versions for some possible values.

For Linux, this returns the "BUILD_ID" string from /etc/os-release, although this is not often used.

Please read "INSPECTION" in guestfs(3) for more details.

  inspect-get-distro
 inspect-get-distro root

This returns the distro (distribution) of the inspected operating system.

Currently defined distros are:

"alpinelinux"
    Alpine Linux.

"altlinux"
    ALT Linux.

"archlinux"
    Arch Linux.

"buildroot"
    Buildroot-derived distro, but not one we specifically recognize.

"centos"
    CentOS.

"circle"
    Circle Linux.

"cirros"
    Cirros.

"coreos"
    CoreOS.

"debian"
    Debian.

"fedora"
    Fedora.

"freebsd"
    FreeBSD.

"freedos"
    FreeDOS.

"frugalware"
    Frugalware.

"gentoo"
    Gentoo.

"kalilinux"
    Kali Linux.

"kylin"
    Kylin.

"linuxmint"
    Linux Mint.

"mageia"
    Mageia.

"mandriva"
    Mandriva.

"meego"
    MeeGo.

"msdos"
    Microsoft DOS.

"neokylin"
    NeoKylin.

"netbsd"
    NetBSD.

"openbsd"
    OpenBSD.

"openeuler"
    openEuler.

"openmandriva"
    OpenMandriva Lx.

"opensuse"
    OpenSUSE.

"oraclelinux"
    Oracle Linux.

"pardus"
    Pardus.

"pldlinux"
    PLD Linux.

"redhat-based"
    Some Red Hat-derived distro.

"rhel"
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

"rocky"
    Rocky Linux.

"scientificlinux"
    Scientific Linux.

"slackware"
    Slackware.

"sles"
    SuSE Linux Enterprise Server or Desktop.

"suse-based"
    Some openSuSE-derived distro.

"ttylinux"
    ttylinux.

"ubuntu"
    Ubuntu.

"unknown"
    The distro could not be determined.

"voidlinux"
    Void Linux.

"windows"
    Windows does not have distributions. This string is returned if the OS type is Windows.

Future versions of libguestfs may return other strings here. The caller should be prepared to handle any string.

Please read "INSPECTION" in guestfs(3) for more details.

  inspect-get-drive-mappings
 inspect-get-drive-mappings root

This call is useful for Windows which uses a primitive system of assigning drive letters (like C:\) to partitions. This inspection API examines the Windows Registry to find out how disks/partitions are mapped to drive letters, and returns a hash table as in the example below:

 C      =>     /dev/vda2
 E      =>     /dev/vdb1
 F      =>     /dev/vdc1

Note that keys are drive letters. For Windows, the key is case insensitive and just contains the drive letter, without the customary colon separator character.

In future we may support other operating systems that also used drive letters, but the keys for those might not be case insensitive and might be longer than 1 character. For example in OS-9, hard drives were named "h0", "h1" etc.

For Windows guests, currently only hard drive mappings are returned. Removable disks (eg. DVD-ROMs) are ignored.

For guests that do not use drive mappings, or if the drive mappings could not be determined, this returns an empty hash table.

Please read "INSPECTION" in guestfs(3) for more details. See also "inspect-get-mountpoints", "inspect-get-filesystems".

  inspect-get-filesystems
 inspect-get-filesystems root

This returns a list of all the filesystems that we think are associated with this operating system. This includes the root filesystem, other ordinary filesystems, and non-mounted devices like swap partitions.

In the case of a multi-boot virtual machine, it is possible for a filesystem to be shared between operating systems.

Please read "INSPECTION" in guestfs(3) for more details. See also "inspect-get-mountpoints".

  inspect-get-format
 inspect-get-format root

Before libguestfs 1.38, there was some unreliable support for detecting installer CDs. This API would return:

"installed"
    This is an installed operating system.

"installer"
    The disk image being inspected is not an installed operating system, but a bootable install disk, live CD, or similar.

"unknown"
    The format of this disk image is not known.

In libguestfs ≥ 1.38, this only returns "installed". Use libosinfo directly to detect installer CDs.

Please read "INSPECTION" in guestfs(3) for more details.

This function is deprecated. There is no replacement. Consult the API documentation in guestfs(3) for further information.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  inspect-get-hostname
 inspect-get-hostname root

This function returns the hostname of the operating system as found by inspection of the guest’s configuration files.

If the hostname could not be determined, then the string "unknown" is returned.

Please read "INSPECTION" in guestfs(3) for more details.

  inspect-get-icon
 inspect-get-icon root [favicon:true|false] [highquality:true|false]

This function returns an icon corresponding to the inspected operating system. The icon is returned as a buffer containing a PNG image (re-encoded to PNG if necessary).

If it was not possible to get an icon this function returns a zero-length (non-NULL) buffer. Callers must check for this case.

Libguestfs will start by looking for a file called /etc/favicon.png or C:\etc\favicon.png and if it has the correct format, the contents of this file will be returned. You can disable favicons by passing the optional "favicon" boolean as false (default is true).

If finding the favicon fails, then we look in other places in the guest for a suitable icon.

If the optional "highquality" boolean is true then only high quality icons are returned, which means only icons of high resolution with an alpha channel. The default (false) is to return any icon we can, even if it is of substandard quality.

Notes:

•   Unlike most other inspection API calls, the guest’s disks must be mounted up before you call this, since it needs to read information from the guest filesystem during the call.

•   Security: The icon data comes from the untrusted guest, and should be treated with caution. PNG files have been known to contain exploits. Ensure that libpng (or other relevant libraries) are fully up to date before trying to process or display the icon.

•   The PNG image returned can be any size. It might not be square. Libguestfs tries to return the largest, highest quality icon available. The application must scale the icon to the required size.

•   Extracting icons from Windows guests requires the external wrestool(1) program from the "icoutils" package, and several programs (bmptopnm(1), pnmtopng(1), pamcut(1)) from the "netpbm" package. These must be installed separately.

•   Operating system icons are usually trademarks. Seek legal advice before using trademarks in applications.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  inspect-get-major-version
 inspect-get-major-version root

This returns the major version number of the inspected operating system.

Windows uses a consistent versioning scheme which is not reflected in the popular public names used by the operating system. Notably the operating system known as "Windows 7" is really version 6.1 (ie. major = 6, minor = 1). You can find out the real versions corresponding to releases of Windows by consulting Wikipedia or MSDN.

If the version could not be determined, then 0 is returned.

Please read "INSPECTION" in guestfs(3) for more details.

  inspect-get-minor-version
 inspect-get-minor-version root

This returns the minor version number of the inspected operating system.

If the version could not be determined, then 0 is returned.

Please read "INSPECTION" in guestfs(3) for more details. See also "inspect-get-major-version".

  inspect-get-mountpoints
 inspect-get-mountpoints root

This returns a hash of where we think the filesystems associated with this operating system should be mounted. Callers should note that this is at best an educated guess made by reading configuration files such as /etc/fstab. In particular note that this may return filesystems which are non-existent or not mountable and callers should be prepared to handle or ignore failures if they try to mount them.

Each element in the returned hashtable has a key which is the path of the mountpoint (eg. /boot) and a value which is the filesystem that would be mounted there (eg. /dev/sda1).

Non-mounted devices such as swap devices are not returned in this list.

For operating systems like Windows which still use drive letters, this call will only return an entry for the first drive "mounted on" /. For information about the mapping of drive letters to partitions, see "inspect-get-drive-mappings".

Please read "INSPECTION" in guestfs(3) for more details. See also "inspect-get-filesystems".

  inspect-get-osinfo
 inspect-get-osinfo root

This function returns a possible short ID for libosinfo corresponding to the guest.

Note: The returned ID is only a guess by libguestfs, and nothing ensures that it actually exists in osinfo-db.

If no ID could not be determined, then the string "unknown" is returned.

  inspect-get-package-format
 inspect-get-package-format root

This function and "inspect-get-package-management" return the package format and package management tool used by the inspected operating system. For example for Fedora these functions would return "rpm" (package format), and "yum" or "dnf" (package management).

This returns the string "unknown" if we could not determine the package format or if the operating system does not have a real packaging system (eg. Windows).

Possible strings include: "rpm", "deb", "ebuild", "pisi", "pacman", "pkgsrc", "apk", "xbps". Future versions of libguestfs may return other strings.

Please read "INSPECTION" in guestfs(3) for more details.

  inspect-get-package-management
 inspect-get-package-management root

"inspect-get-package-format" and this function return the package format and package management tool used by the inspected operating system. For example for Fedora these functions would return "rpm" (package format), and "yum" or "dnf" (package management).

This returns the string "unknown" if we could not determine the package management tool or if the operating system does not have a real packaging system (eg. Windows).

Possible strings include: "yum", "dnf", "up2date", "apt" (for all Debian derivatives), "portage", "pisi", "pacman", "urpmi", "zypper", "apk", "xbps". Future versions of libguestfs may return other strings.

Please read "INSPECTION" in guestfs(3) for more details.

  inspect-get-product-name
 inspect-get-product-name root

This returns the product name of the inspected operating system. The product name is generally some freeform string which can be displayed to the user, but should not be parsed by programs.

If the product name could not be determined, then the string "unknown" is returned.

Please read "INSPECTION" in guestfs(3) for more details.

  inspect-get-product-variant
 inspect-get-product-variant root

This returns the product variant of the inspected operating system.

For Windows guests, this returns the contents of the Registry key "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion" "InstallationType" which is usually a string such as "Client" or "Server" (other values are possible). This can be used to distinguish consumer and enterprise versions of Windows that have the same version number (for example, Windows 7 and Windows 2008 Server are both version 6.1, but the former is "Client" and the latter is "Server").

For enterprise Linux guests, in future we intend this to return the product variant such as "Desktop", "Server" and so on. But this is not implemented at present.

If the product variant could not be determined, then the string "unknown" is returned.

Please read "INSPECTION" in guestfs(3) for more details. See also "inspect-get-product-name", "inspect-get-major-version".

  inspect-get-roots
 inspect-get-roots

This function is a convenient way to get the list of root devices, as returned from a previous call to "inspect-os", but without redoing the whole inspection process.

This returns an empty list if either no root devices were found or the caller has not called "inspect-os".

Please read "INSPECTION" in guestfs(3) for more details.

  inspect-get-type
 inspect-get-type root

This returns the type of the inspected operating system. Currently defined types are:

"linux"
    Any Linux-based operating system.

"windows"
    Any Microsoft Windows operating system.

"freebsd"
    FreeBSD.

"netbsd"
    NetBSD.

"openbsd"
    OpenBSD.

"hurd"
    GNU/Hurd.

"dos"
    MS-DOS, FreeDOS and others.

"minix"
    MINIX.

"unknown"
    The operating system type could not be determined.

Future versions of libguestfs may return other strings here. The caller should be prepared to handle any string.

Please read "INSPECTION" in guestfs(3) for more details.

  inspect-get-windows-current-control-set
 inspect-get-windows-current-control-set root

This returns the Windows CurrentControlSet of the inspected guest. The CurrentControlSet is a registry key name such as "ControlSet001".

This call assumes that the guest is Windows and that the Registry could be examined by inspection. If this is not the case then an error is returned.

Please read "INSPECTION" in guestfs(3) for more details.

  inspect-get-windows-software-hive
 inspect-get-windows-software-hive root

This returns the path to the hive (binary Windows Registry file) corresponding to HKLM\SOFTWARE.

This call assumes that the guest is Windows and that the guest has a software hive file with the right name. If this is not the case then an error is returned. This call does not check that the hive is a valid Windows Registry hive.

You can use "hivex-open" to read or write to the hive.

Please read "INSPECTION" in guestfs(3) for more details.

  inspect-get-windows-system-hive
 inspect-get-windows-system-hive root

This returns the path to the hive (binary Windows Registry file) corresponding to HKLM\SYSTEM.

This call assumes that the guest is Windows and that the guest has a system hive file with the right name. If this is not the case then an error is returned. This call does not check that the hive is a valid Windows Registry hive.

You can use "hivex-open" to read or write to the hive.

Please read "INSPECTION" in guestfs(3) for more details.

  inspect-get-windows-systemroot
 inspect-get-windows-systemroot root

This returns the Windows systemroot of the inspected guest. The systemroot is a directory path such as /WINDOWS.

This call assumes that the guest is Windows and that the systemroot could be determined by inspection. If this is not the case then an error is returned.

Please read "INSPECTION" in guestfs(3) for more details.

  inspect-is-live
 inspect-is-live root

This is deprecated and always returns "false".

Please read "INSPECTION" in guestfs(3) for more details.

This function is deprecated. There is no replacement. Consult the API documentation in guestfs(3) for further information.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  inspect-is-multipart
 inspect-is-multipart root

This is deprecated and always returns "false".

Please read "INSPECTION" in guestfs(3) for more details.

This function is deprecated. There is no replacement. Consult the API documentation in guestfs(3) for further information.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  inspect-is-netinst
 inspect-is-netinst root

This is deprecated and always returns "false".

Please read "INSPECTION" in guestfs(3) for more details.

This function is deprecated. There is no replacement. Consult the API documentation in guestfs(3) for further information.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  inspect-list-applications
 inspect-list-applications root

Return the list of applications installed in the operating system.

Note: This call works differently from other parts of the inspection API. You have to call "inspect-os", then "inspect-get-mountpoints", then mount up the disks, before calling this. Listing applications is a significantly more difficult operation which requires access to the full filesystem. Also note that unlike the other "inspect-get-*" calls which are just returning data cached in the libguestfs handle, this call actually reads parts of the mounted filesystems during the call.

This returns an empty list if the inspection code was not able to determine the list of applications.

The application structure contains the following fields:

"app_name"
    The name of the application. For Linux guests, this is the package name.

"app_display_name"
    The display name of the application, sometimes localized to the install language of the guest operating system.

    If unavailable this is returned as an empty string "". Callers needing to display something can use "app_name" instead.

"app_epoch"
    For package managers which use epochs, this contains the epoch of the package (an integer). If unavailable, this is returned as 0.

"app_version"
    The version string of the application or package. If unavailable this is returned as an empty string "".

"app_release"
    The release string of the application or package, for package managers that use this. If unavailable this is returned as an empty string "".

"app_install_path"
    The installation path of the application (on operating systems such as Windows which use installation paths). This path is in the format used by the guest operating system, it is not a libguestfs path.

    If unavailable this is returned as an empty string "".

"app_trans_path"
    The install path translated into a libguestfs path. If unavailable this is returned as an empty string "".

"app_publisher"
    The name of the publisher of the application, for package managers that use this. If unavailable this is returned as an empty string "".

"app_url"
    The URL (eg. upstream URL) of the application. If unavailable this is returned as an empty string "".

"app_source_package"
    For packaging systems which support this, the name of the source package. If unavailable this is returned as an empty string "".

"app_summary"
    A short (usually one line) description of the application or package. If unavailable this is returned as an empty string "".

"app_description"
    A longer description of the application or package. If unavailable this is returned as an empty string "".

Please read "INSPECTION" in guestfs(3) for more details.

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "inspect-list-applications2" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  inspect-list-applications2
 inspect-list-applications2 root

Return the list of applications installed in the operating system.

Note: This call works differently from other parts of the inspection API. You have to call "inspect-os", then "inspect-get-mountpoints", then mount up the disks, before calling this. Listing applications is a significantly more difficult operation which requires access to the full filesystem. Also note that unlike the other "inspect-get-*" calls which are just returning data cached in the libguestfs handle, this call actually reads parts of the mounted filesystems during the call.

This returns an empty list if the inspection code was not able to determine the list of applications.

The application structure contains the following fields:

"app2_name"
    The name of the application. For Linux guests, this is the package name.

"app2_display_name"
    The display name of the application, sometimes localized to the install language of the guest operating system.

    If unavailable this is returned as an empty string "". Callers needing to display something can use "app2_name" instead.

"app2_epoch"
    For package managers which use epochs, this contains the epoch of the package (an integer). If unavailable, this is returned as 0.

"app2_version"
    The version string of the application or package. If unavailable this is returned as an empty string "".

"app2_release"
    The release string of the application or package, for package managers that use this. If unavailable this is returned as an empty string "".

"app2_arch"
    The architecture string of the application or package, for package managers that use this. If unavailable this is returned as an empty string "".

"app2_install_path"
    The installation path of the application (on operating systems such as Windows which use installation paths). This path is in the format used by the guest operating system, it is not a libguestfs path.

    If unavailable this is returned as an empty string "".

"app2_trans_path"
    The install path translated into a libguestfs path. If unavailable this is returned as an empty string "".

"app2_publisher"
    The name of the publisher of the application, for package managers that use this. If unavailable this is returned as an empty string "".

"app2_url"
    The URL (eg. upstream URL) of the application. If unavailable this is returned as an empty string "".

"app2_source_package"
    For packaging systems which support this, the name of the source package. If unavailable this is returned as an empty string "".

"app2_summary"
    A short (usually one line) description of the application or package. If unavailable this is returned as an empty string "".

"app2_description"
    A longer description of the application or package. If unavailable this is returned as an empty string "".

Please read "INSPECTION" in guestfs(3) for more details.

  inspect-os
 inspect-os

This function uses other libguestfs functions and certain heuristics to inspect the disk(s) (usually disks belonging to a virtual machine), looking for operating systems.

The list returned is empty if no operating systems were found.

If one operating system was found, then this returns a list with a single element, which is the name of the root filesystem of this operating system. It is also possible for this function to return a list containing more than one element, indicating a dual-boot or multi-boot virtual machine, with each element being the root filesystem of one of the operating systems.

You can pass the root string(s) returned to other "inspect-get-*" functions in order to query further information about each operating system, such as the name and version.

This function uses other libguestfs features such as "mount-ro" and "umount-all" in order to mount and unmount filesystems and look at the contents. This should be called with no disks currently mounted. The function may also use Augeas, so any existing Augeas handle will be closed.

This function cannot decrypt encrypted disks. The caller must do that first (supplying the necessary keys) if the disk is encrypted.

Please read "INSPECTION" in guestfs(3) for more details.

See also "list-filesystems".

  is-blockdev

  is-blockdev-opts
 is-blockdev path [followsymlinks:true|false]

This returns "true" if and only if there is a block device with the given "path" name.

If the optional flag "followsymlinks" is true, then a symlink (or chain of symlinks) that ends with a block device also causes the function to return true.

This call only looks at files within the guest filesystem. Libguestfs partitions and block devices (eg. /dev/sda) cannot be used as the "path" parameter of this call.

See also "stat".

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  is-chardev

  is-chardev-opts
 is-chardev path [followsymlinks:true|false]

This returns "true" if and only if there is a character device with the given "path" name.

If the optional flag "followsymlinks" is true, then a symlink (or chain of symlinks) that ends with a chardev also causes the function to return true.

See also "stat".

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  is-config
 is-config

This returns true iff this handle is being configured (in the "CONFIG" state).

For more information on states, see guestfs(3).

  is-dir

  is-dir-opts
 is-dir path [followsymlinks:true|false]

This returns "true" if and only if there is a directory with the given "path" name. Note that it returns false for other objects like files.

If the optional flag "followsymlinks" is true, then a symlink (or chain of symlinks) that ends with a directory also causes the function to return true.

See also "stat".

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  is-fifo

  is-fifo-opts
 is-fifo path [followsymlinks:true|false]

This returns "true" if and only if there is a FIFO (named pipe) with the given "path" name.

If the optional flag "followsymlinks" is true, then a symlink (or chain of symlinks) that ends with a FIFO also causes the function to return true.

See also "stat".

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  is-file

  is-file-opts
 is-file path [followsymlinks:true|false]

This returns "true" if and only if there is a regular file with the given "path" name. Note that it returns false for other objects like directories.

If the optional flag "followsymlinks" is true, then a symlink (or chain of symlinks) that ends with a file also causes the function to return true.

See also "stat".

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  is-lv
 is-lv mountable

This command tests whether "mountable" is a logical volume, and returns true iff this is the case.

  is-socket

  is-socket-opts
 is-socket path [followsymlinks:true|false]

This returns "true" if and only if there is a Unix domain socket with the given "path" name.

If the optional flag "followsymlinks" is true, then a symlink (or chain of symlinks) that ends with a socket also causes the function to return true.

See also "stat".

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  is-symlink
 is-symlink path

This returns "true" if and only if there is a symbolic link with the given "path" name.

See also "stat".

  is-whole-device
 is-whole-device device

This returns "true" if and only if "device" refers to a whole block device. That is, not a partition or a logical device.

  is-zero
 is-zero path

This returns true iff the file exists and the file is empty or it contains all zero bytes.

  is-zero-device
 is-zero-device device

This returns true iff the device exists and contains all zero bytes.

Note that for large devices this can take a long time to run.

  isoinfo
 isoinfo isofile

This is the same as "isoinfo-device" except that it works for an ISO file located inside some other mounted filesystem. Note that in the common case where you have added an ISO file as a libguestfs device, you would not call this. Instead you would call "isoinfo-device".

  isoinfo-device
 isoinfo-device device

"device" is an ISO device. This returns a struct of information read from the primary volume descriptor (the ISO equivalent of the superblock) of the device.

Usually it is more efficient to use the isoinfo(1) command with the -d option on the host to analyze ISO files, instead of going through libguestfs.

For information on the primary volume descriptor fields, see https://wiki.osdev.org/ISO_9660#The_Primary_Volume_Descriptor

  journal-close
 journal-close

Close the journal handle.

This command depends on the feature "journal". See also "feature-available".

  journal-get
 journal-get

Read the current journal entry. This returns all the fields in the journal as a set of "(attrname, attrval)" pairs. The "attrname" is the field name (a string).

The "attrval" is the field value (a binary blob, often but not always a string). Please note that "attrval" is a byte array, not a \0-terminated C string.

The length of data may be truncated to the data threshold (see: "journal-set-data-threshold", "journal-get-data-threshold").

If you set the data threshold to unlimited (0) then this call can read a journal entry of any size, ie. it is not limited by the libguestfs protocol.

This command depends on the feature "journal". See also "feature-available".

  journal-get-data-threshold
 journal-get-data-threshold

Get the current data threshold for reading journal entries. This is a hint to the journal that it may truncate data fields to this size when reading them (note also that it may not truncate them). If this returns 0, then the threshold is unlimited.

See also "journal-set-data-threshold".

This command depends on the feature "journal". See also "feature-available".

  journal-get-realtime-usec
 journal-get-realtime-usec

Get the realtime (wallclock) timestamp of the current journal entry.

This command depends on the feature "journal". See also "feature-available".

  journal-next
 journal-next

Move to the next journal entry. You have to call this at least once after opening the handle before you are able to read data.

The returned boolean tells you if there are any more journal records to read. "true" means you can read the next record (eg. using "journal-get"), and "false" means you have reached the end of the journal.

This command depends on the feature "journal". See also "feature-available".

  journal-open
 journal-open directory

Open the systemd journal located in directory. Any previously opened journal handle is closed.

The contents of the journal can be read using "journal-next" and "journal-get".

After you have finished using the journal, you should close the handle by calling "journal-close".

This command depends on the feature "journal". See also "feature-available".

  journal-set-data-threshold
 journal-set-data-threshold threshold

Set the data threshold for reading journal entries. This is a hint to the journal that it may truncate data fields to this size when reading them (note also that it may not truncate them). If you set this to 0, then the threshold is unlimited.

See also "journal-get-data-threshold".

This command depends on the feature "journal". See also "feature-available".

  journal-skip
 journal-skip skip

Skip forwards ("skip ≥ 0") or backwards ("skip < 0") in the journal.

The number of entries actually skipped is returned (note "rskip ≥ 0"). If this is not the same as the absolute value of the skip parameter ("|skip|") you passed in then it means you have reached the end or the start of the journal.

This command depends on the feature "journal". See also "feature-available".

  kill-subprocess
 kill-subprocess

This kills the hypervisor.

Do not call this. See: "shutdown" instead.

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "shutdown" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  launch

  run
 launch

You should call this after configuring the handle (eg. adding drives) but before performing any actions.

Do not call "launch" twice on the same handle. Although it will not give an error (for historical reasons), the precise behaviour when you do this is not well defined. Handles are very cheap to create, so create a new one for each launch.

  lchown
 lchown owner group path

Change the file owner to "owner" and group to "group". This is like "chown" but if "path" is a symlink then the link itself is changed, not the target.

Only numeric uid and gid are supported. If you want to use names, you will need to locate and parse the password file yourself (Augeas support makes this relatively easy).

  ldmtool-create-all
 ldmtool-create-all

This function scans all block devices looking for Windows dynamic disk volumes and partitions, and creates devices for any that were found.

Call "list-ldm-volumes" and "list-ldm-partitions" to return all devices.

Note that you don't normally need to call this explicitly, since it is done automatically at "launch" time.

This command depends on the feature "ldm". See also "feature-available".

  ldmtool-diskgroup-disks
 ldmtool-diskgroup-disks diskgroup

Return the disks in a Windows dynamic disk group. The "diskgroup" parameter should be the GUID of a disk group, one element from the list returned by "ldmtool-scan".

This command depends on the feature "ldm". See also "feature-available".

  ldmtool-diskgroup-name
 ldmtool-diskgroup-name diskgroup

Return the name of a Windows dynamic disk group. The "diskgroup" parameter should be the GUID of a disk group, one element from the list returned by "ldmtool-scan".

This command depends on the feature "ldm". See also "feature-available".

  ldmtool-diskgroup-volumes
 ldmtool-diskgroup-volumes diskgroup

Return the volumes in a Windows dynamic disk group. The "diskgroup" parameter should be the GUID of a disk group, one element from the list returned by "ldmtool-scan".

This command depends on the feature "ldm". See also "feature-available".

  ldmtool-remove-all
 ldmtool-remove-all

This is essentially the opposite of "ldmtool-create-all". It removes the device mapper mappings for all Windows dynamic disk volumes

This command depends on the feature "ldm". See also "feature-available".

  ldmtool-scan
 ldmtool-scan

This function scans for Windows dynamic disks. It returns a list of identifiers (GUIDs) for all disk groups that were found. These identifiers can be passed to other "ldmtool-*" functions.

This function scans all block devices. To scan a subset of block devices, call "ldmtool-scan-devices" instead.

This command depends on the feature "ldm". See also "feature-available".

  ldmtool-scan-devices
 ldmtool-scan-devices 'devices ...'

This function scans for Windows dynamic disks. It returns a list of identifiers (GUIDs) for all disk groups that were found. These identifiers can be passed to other "ldmtool-*" functions.

The parameter "devices" is a list of block devices which are scanned. If this list is empty, all block devices are scanned.

This command depends on the feature "ldm". See also "feature-available".

  ldmtool-volume-hint
 ldmtool-volume-hint diskgroup volume

Return the hint field of the volume named "volume" in the disk group with GUID "diskgroup". This may not be defined, in which case the empty string is returned. The hint field is often, though not always, the name of a Windows drive, eg. "E:".

This command depends on the feature "ldm". See also "feature-available".

  ldmtool-volume-partitions
 ldmtool-volume-partitions diskgroup volume

Return the list of partitions in the volume named "volume" in the disk group with GUID "diskgroup".

This command depends on the feature "ldm". See also "feature-available".

  ldmtool-volume-type
 ldmtool-volume-type diskgroup volume

Return the type of the volume named "volume" in the disk group with GUID "diskgroup".

Possible volume types that can be returned here include: "simple", "spanned", "striped", "mirrored", "raid5". Other types may also be returned.

This command depends on the feature "ldm". See also "feature-available".

  lgetxattr
 lgetxattr path name

Get a single extended attribute from file "path" named "name". If "path" is a symlink, then this call returns an extended attribute from the symlink.

Normally it is better to get all extended attributes from a file in one go by calling "getxattrs". However some Linux filesystem implementations are buggy and do not provide a way to list out attributes. For these filesystems (notably ntfs-3g) you have to know the names of the extended attributes you want in advance and call this function.

Extended attribute values are blobs of binary data. If there is no extended attribute named "name", this returns an error.

See also: "lgetxattrs", "getxattr", attr(5).

This command depends on the feature "linuxxattrs". See also "feature-available".

  lgetxattrs
 lgetxattrs path

This is the same as "getxattrs", but if "path" is a symbolic link, then it returns the extended attributes of the link itself.

This command depends on the feature "linuxxattrs". See also "feature-available".

  list-9p
 list-9p

This call does nothing and returns an error.

This function is deprecated. There is no replacement. Consult the API documentation in guestfs(3) for further information.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  list-devices
 list-devices

List all the block devices.

The full block device names are returned, eg. /dev/sda.

See also "list-filesystems".

  list-disk-labels
 list-disk-labels

If you add drives using the optional "label" parameter of "add-drive-opts", you can use this call to map between disk labels, and raw block device and partition names (like /dev/sda and /dev/sda1).

This returns a hashtable, where keys are the disk labels (without the /dev/disk/guestfs prefix), and the values are the full raw block device and partition names (eg. /dev/sda and /dev/sda1).

  list-dm-devices
 list-dm-devices

List all device mapper devices.

The returned list contains /dev/mapper/* devices, eg. ones created by a previous call to "luks-open".

Device mapper devices which correspond to logical volumes are not returned in this list. Call "lvs" if you want to list logical volumes.

  list-filesystems
 list-filesystems

This inspection command looks for filesystems on partitions, block devices and logical volumes, returning a list of "mountables" containing filesystems and their type.

The return value is a hash, where the keys are the devices containing filesystems, and the values are the filesystem types. For example:

 "/dev/sda1" => "ntfs"
 "/dev/sda2" => "ext2"
 "/dev/vg_guest/lv_root" => "ext4"
 "/dev/vg_guest/lv_swap" => "swap"

The key is not necessarily a block device. It may also be an opaque ‘mountable’ string which can be passed to "mount".

The value can have the special value "unknown", meaning the content of the device is undetermined or empty. "swap" means a Linux swap partition.

In libguestfs ≤ 1.36 this command ran other libguestfs commands, which might have included "mount" and "umount", and therefore you had to use this soon after launch and only when nothing else was mounted. This restriction is removed in libguestfs ≥ 1.38.

Not all of the filesystems returned will be mountable. In particular, swap partitions are returned in the list. Also this command does not check that each filesystem found is valid and mountable, and some filesystems might be mountable but require special options. Filesystems may not all belong to a single logical operating system (use "inspect-os" to look for OSes).

  list-ldm-partitions
 list-ldm-partitions

This function returns all Windows dynamic disk partitions that were found at launch time. It returns a list of device names.

This command depends on the feature "ldm". See also "feature-available".

  list-ldm-volumes
 list-ldm-volumes

This function returns all Windows dynamic disk volumes that were found at launch time. It returns a list of device names.

This command depends on the feature "ldm". See also "feature-available".

  list-md-devices
 list-md-devices

List all Linux md devices.

  list-partitions
 list-partitions

List all the partitions detected on all block devices.

The full partition device names are returned, eg. /dev/sda1

This does not return logical volumes. For that you will need to call "lvs".

See also "list-filesystems".

  ll
 ll directory

List the files in directory (relative to the root directory, there is no cwd) in the format of "ls -la".

This command is mostly useful for interactive sessions. It is not intended that you try to parse the output string.

  llz
 llz directory

List the files in directory in the format of "ls -laZ".

This command is mostly useful for interactive sessions. It is not intended that you try to parse the output string.

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "lgetxattrs" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  ln
 ln target linkname

This command creates a hard link.

  ln-f
 ln-f target linkname

This command creates a hard link, removing the link "linkname" if it exists already.

  ln-s
 ln-s target linkname

This command creates a symbolic link using the "ln -s" command.

  ln-sf
 ln-sf target linkname

This command creates a symbolic link using the "ln -sf" command, The -f option removes the link ("linkname") if it exists already.

  lremovexattr
 lremovexattr xattr path

This is the same as "removexattr", but if "path" is a symbolic link, then it removes an extended attribute of the link itself.

This command depends on the feature "linuxxattrs". See also "feature-available".

  ls
 ls directory

List the files in directory (relative to the root directory, there is no cwd). The "." and ".." entries are not returned, but hidden files are shown.

  ls0
 ls0 dir (filenames|-)

This specialized command is used to get a listing of the filenames in the directory "dir". The list of filenames is written to the local file filenames (on the host).

In the output file, the filenames are separated by "\0" characters.

"." and ".." are not returned. The filenames are not sorted.

Use "-" instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.

  lsetxattr
 lsetxattr xattr val vallen path

This is the same as "setxattr", but if "path" is a symbolic link, then it sets an extended attribute of the link itself.

This command depends on the feature "linuxxattrs". See also "feature-available".

  lstat
 lstat path

Returns file information for the given "path".

This is the same as "stat" except that if "path" is a symbolic link, then the link is stat-ed, not the file it refers to.

This is the same as the lstat(2) system call.

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "lstatns" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  lstatlist
 lstatlist path 'names ...'

This call allows you to perform the "lstat" operation on multiple files, where all files are in the directory "path". "names" is the list of files from this directory.

On return you get a list of stat structs, with a one-to-one correspondence to the "names" list. If any name did not exist or could not be lstat'd, then the "st_ino" field of that structure is set to -1.

This call is intended for programs that want to efficiently list a directory contents without making many round-trips. See also "lxattrlist" for a similarly efficient call for getting extended attributes.

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "lstatnslist" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  lstatns
 lstatns path

Returns file information for the given "path".

This is the same as "statns" except that if "path" is a symbolic link, then the link is stat-ed, not the file it refers to.

This is the same as the lstat(2) system call.

  lstatnslist
 lstatnslist path 'names ...'

This call allows you to perform the "lstatns" operation on multiple files, where all files are in the directory "path". "names" is the list of files from this directory.

On return you get a list of stat structs, with a one-to-one correspondence to the "names" list. If any name did not exist or could not be lstat'd, then the "st_ino" field of that structure is set to -1.

This call is intended for programs that want to efficiently list a directory contents without making many round-trips. See also "lxattrlist" for a similarly efficient call for getting extended attributes.

  luks-add-key
 luks-add-key device keyslot

This command adds a new key on LUKS device "device". "key" is any existing key, and is used to access the device. "newkey" is the new key to add. "keyslot" is the key slot that will be replaced.

Note that if "keyslot" already contains a key, then this command will fail. You have to use "luks-kill-slot" first to remove that key.

This command has one or more key or passphrase parameters. Guestfish will prompt for these separately.

This command depends on the feature "luks". See also "feature-available".

  luks-close
 luks-close device

This closes a LUKS device that was created earlier by "luks-open" or "luks-open-ro". The "device" parameter must be the name of the LUKS mapping device (ie. /dev/mapper/mapname) and not the name of the underlying block device.

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "cryptsetup-close" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

This command depends on the feature "luks". See also "feature-available".

  luks-format
 luks-format device keyslot

This command erases existing data on "device" and formats the device as a LUKS encrypted device. "key" is the initial key, which is added to key slot "keyslot". (LUKS supports 8 key slots, numbered 0-7).

This command has one or more key or passphrase parameters. Guestfish will prompt for these separately.

This command depends on the feature "luks". See also "feature-available".

  luks-format-cipher
 luks-format-cipher device keyslot cipher

This command is the same as "luks-format" but it also allows you to set the "cipher" used.

This command has one or more key or passphrase parameters. Guestfish will prompt for these separately.

This command depends on the feature "luks". See also "feature-available".

  luks-kill-slot
 luks-kill-slot device keyslot

This command deletes the key in key slot "keyslot" from the encrypted LUKS device "device". "key" must be one of the other keys.

This command has one or more key or passphrase parameters. Guestfish will prompt for these separately.

This command depends on the feature "luks". See also "feature-available".

  luks-open
 luks-open device mapname

This command opens a block device which has been encrypted according to the Linux Unified Key Setup (LUKS) standard.

"device" is the encrypted block device or partition.

The caller must supply one of the keys associated with the LUKS block device, in the "key" parameter.

This creates a new block device called /dev/mapper/mapname. Reads and writes to this block device are decrypted from and encrypted to the underlying "device" respectively.

If this block device contains LVM volume groups, then calling "lvm-scan" with the "activate" parameter "true" will make them visible.

Use "list-dm-devices" to list all device mapper devices.

This command has one or more key or passphrase parameters. Guestfish will prompt for these separately.

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "cryptsetup-open" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

This command depends on the feature "luks". See also "feature-available".

  luks-open-ro
 luks-open-ro device mapname

This is the same as "luks-open" except that a read-only mapping is created.

This command has one or more key or passphrase parameters. Guestfish will prompt for these separately.

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "cryptsetup-open" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

This command depends on the feature "luks". See also "feature-available".

  luks-uuid
 luks-uuid device

This returns the UUID of the LUKS device "device".

This command depends on the feature "luks". See also "feature-available".

  lvcreate
 lvcreate logvol volgroup mbytes

This creates an LVM logical volume called "logvol" on the volume group "volgroup", with "size" megabytes.

This command depends on the feature "lvm2". See also "feature-available".

  lvcreate-free
 lvcreate-free logvol volgroup percent

Create an LVM logical volume called /dev/volgroup/logvol, using approximately "percent" % of the free space remaining in the volume group. Most usefully, when "percent" is 100 this will create the largest possible LV.

This command depends on the feature "lvm2". See also "feature-available".

  lvm-canonical-lv-name
 lvm-canonical-lv-name lvname

This converts alternative naming schemes for LVs that you might find to the canonical name. For example, /dev/mapper/VG-LV is converted to /dev/VG/LV.

This command returns an error if the "lvname" parameter does not refer to a logical volume. In this case errno will be set to "EINVAL".

See also "is-lv", "canonical-device-name".

  lvm-clear-filter
 lvm-clear-filter

This undoes the effect of "lvm-set-filter". LVM will be able to see every block device.

This command also clears the LVM cache and performs a volume group scan.

  lvm-remove-all
 lvm-remove-all

This command removes all LVM logical volumes, volume groups and physical volumes.

This command depends on the feature "lvm2". See also "feature-available".

  lvm-scan
 lvm-scan true|false

This scans all block devices and rebuilds the list of LVM physical volumes, volume groups and logical volumes.

If the "activate" parameter is "true" then newly found volume groups and logical volumes are activated, meaning the LV /dev/VG/LV devices become visible.

When a libguestfs handle is launched it scans for existing devices, so you do not normally need to use this API. However it is useful when you have added a new device or deleted an existing device (such as when the "luks-open" API is used).

  lvm-set-filter
 lvm-set-filter 'devices ...'

This sets the LVM device filter so that LVM will only be able to "see" the block devices in the list "devices", and will ignore all other attached block devices.

Where disk image(s) contain duplicate PVs or VGs, this command is useful to get LVM to ignore the duplicates, otherwise LVM can get confused. Note also there are two types of duplication possible: either cloned PVs/VGs which have identical UUIDs; or VGs that are not cloned but just happen to have the same name. In normal operation you cannot create this situation, but you can do it outside LVM, eg. by cloning disk images or by bit twiddling inside the LVM metadata.

This command also clears the LVM cache and performs a volume group scan.

You can filter whole block devices or individual partitions.

You cannot use this if any VG is currently in use (eg. contains a mounted filesystem), even if you are not filtering out that VG.

This command depends on the feature "lvm2". See also "feature-available".

  lvremove
 lvremove device

Remove an LVM logical volume "device", where "device" is the path to the LV, such as /dev/VG/LV.

You can also remove all LVs in a volume group by specifying the VG name, /dev/VG.

This command depends on the feature "lvm2". See also "feature-available".

  lvrename
 lvrename logvol newlogvol

Rename a logical volume "logvol" with the new name "newlogvol".

  lvresize
 lvresize device mbytes

This resizes (expands or shrinks) an existing LVM logical volume to "mbytes". When reducing, data in the reduced part is lost.

This command depends on the feature "lvm2". See also "feature-available".

  lvresize-free
 lvresize-free lv percent

This expands an existing logical volume "lv" so that it fills "pc" % of the remaining free space in the volume group. Commonly you would call this with pc = 100 which expands the logical volume as much as possible, using all remaining free space in the volume group.

This command depends on the feature "lvm2". See also "feature-available".

  lvs
 lvs

List all the logical volumes detected. This is the equivalent of the lvs(8) command.

This returns a list of the logical volume device names (eg. /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00).

See also "lvs-full", "list-filesystems".

This command depends on the feature "lvm2". See also "feature-available".

  lvs-full
 lvs-full

List all the logical volumes detected. This is the equivalent of the lvs(8) command. The "full" version includes all fields.

This command depends on the feature "lvm2". See also "feature-available".

  lvuuid
 lvuuid device

This command returns the UUID of the LVM LV "device".

  lxattrlist
 lxattrlist path 'names ...'

This call allows you to get the extended attributes of multiple files, where all files are in the directory "path". "names" is the list of files from this directory.

On return you get a flat list of xattr structs which must be interpreted sequentially. The first xattr struct always has a zero-length "attrname". "attrval" in this struct is zero-length to indicate there was an error doing "lgetxattr" for this file, or is a C string which is a decimal number (the number of following attributes for this file, which could be "0"). Then after the first xattr struct are the zero or more attributes for the first named file. This repeats for the second and subsequent files.

This call is intended for programs that want to efficiently list a directory contents without making many round-trips. See also "lstatlist" for a similarly efficient call for getting standard stats.

This command depends on the feature "linuxxattrs". See also "feature-available".

  max-disks
 max-disks

Return the maximum number of disks that may be added to a handle (eg. by "add-drive-opts" and similar calls).

This function was added in libguestfs 1.19.7. In previous versions of libguestfs the limit was 25.

See "MAXIMUM NUMBER OF DISKS" in guestfs(3) for additional information on this topic.

  md-create
 md-create name 'devices ...' [missingbitmap:N] [nrdevices:N] [spare:N] [chunk:N] [level:..]

Create a Linux md (RAID) device named "name" on the devices in the list "devices".

The optional parameters are:

"missingbitmap"
    A bitmap of missing devices. If a bit is set it means that a missing device is added to the array. The least significant bit corresponds to the first device in the array.

    As examples:

    If "devices = ["/dev/sda"]" and "missingbitmap = 0x1" then the resulting array would be "[<missing>, "/dev/sda"]".

    If "devices = ["/dev/sda"]" and "missingbitmap = 0x2" then the resulting array would be "["/dev/sda", <missing>]".

    This defaults to 0 (no missing devices).

    The length of "devices" + the number of bits set in "missingbitmap" must equal "nrdevices" + "spare".

"nrdevices"
    The number of active RAID devices.

    If not set, this defaults to the length of "devices" plus the number of bits set in "missingbitmap".

"spare"
    The number of spare devices.

    If not set, this defaults to 0.

"chunk"
    The chunk size in bytes.

    The "chunk" parameter does not make sense, and should not be specified, when "level" is "raid1" (which is the default; see below).

"level"
    The RAID level, which can be one of: "linear", "raid0", 0, "stripe", "raid1", 1, "mirror", "raid4", 4, "raid5", 5, "raid6", 6, "raid10", 10. Some of these are synonymous, and more levels may be added in future.

    If not set, this defaults to "raid1".

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

This command depends on the feature "mdadm". See also "feature-available".

  md-detail
 md-detail md

This command exposes the output of "mdadm -DY <md>". The following fields are usually present in the returned hash. Other fields may also be present.

"level"
    The raid level of the MD device.

"devices"
    The number of underlying devices in the MD device.

"metadata"
    The metadata version used.

"uuid"
    The UUID of the MD device.

"name"
    The name of the MD device.

This command depends on the feature "mdadm". See also "feature-available".

  md-stat
 md-stat md

This call returns a list of the underlying devices which make up the single software RAID array device "md".

To get a list of software RAID devices, call "list-md-devices".

Each structure returned corresponds to one device along with additional status information:

"mdstat_device"
    The name of the underlying device.

"mdstat_index"
    The index of this device within the array.

"mdstat_flags"
    Flags associated with this device. This is a string containing (in no specific order) zero or more of the following flags:

    "W" write-mostly

    "F" device is faulty

    "S" device is a RAID spare

    "R" replacement

This command depends on the feature "mdadm". See also "feature-available".

  md-stop
 md-stop md

This command deactivates the MD array named "md". The device is stopped, but it is not destroyed or zeroed.

This command depends on the feature "mdadm". See also "feature-available".

  mkdir
 mkdir path

Create a directory named "path".

  mkdir-mode
 mkdir-mode path mode

This command creates a directory, setting the initial permissions of the directory to "mode".

For common Linux filesystems, the actual mode which is set will be "mode & ~umask & 01777". Non-native-Linux filesystems may interpret the mode in other ways.

See also "mkdir", "umask"

  mkdir-p
 mkdir-p path

Create a directory named "path", creating any parent directories as necessary. This is like the "mkdir -p" shell command.

  mkdtemp
 mkdtemp tmpl

This command creates a temporary directory. The "tmpl" parameter should be a full pathname for the temporary directory name with the final six characters being "XXXXXX".

For example: "/tmp/myprogXXXXXX" or "/Temp/myprogXXXXXX", the second one being suitable for Windows filesystems.

The name of the temporary directory that was created is returned.

The temporary directory is created with mode 0700 and is owned by root.

The caller is responsible for deleting the temporary directory and its contents after use.

See also: mkdtemp(3)

  mke2fs
 mke2fs device [blockscount:N] [blocksize:N] [fragsize:N] [blockspergroup:N] [numberofgroups:N] [bytesperinode:N] [inodesize:N] [journalsize:N] [numberofinodes:N] [stridesize:N] [stripewidth:N] [maxonlineresize:N] [reservedblockspercentage:N] [mmpupdateinterval:N] [journaldevice:..] [label:..] [lastmounteddir:..] [creatoros:..] [fstype:..] [usagetype:..] [uuid:..] [forcecreate:true|false] [writesbandgrouponly:true|false] [lazyitableinit:true|false] [lazyjournalinit:true|false] [testfs:true|false] [discard:true|false] [quotatype:true|false] [extent:true|false] [filetype:true|false] [flexbg:true|false] [hasjournal:true|false] [journaldev:true|false] [largefile:true|false] [quota:true|false] [resizeinode:true|false] [sparsesuper:true|false] [uninitbg:true|false]

"mke2fs" is used to create an ext2, ext3, or ext4 filesystem on "device".

The optional "blockscount" is the size of the filesystem in blocks. If omitted it defaults to the size of "device". Note if the filesystem is too small to contain a journal, "mke2fs" will silently create an ext2 filesystem instead.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  mke2fs-J
 mke2fs-J fstype blocksize device journal

This creates an ext2/3/4 filesystem on "device" with an external journal on "journal". It is equivalent to the command:

 mke2fs -t fstype -b blocksize -J device=<journal> <device>

See also "mke2journal".

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "mke2fs" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  mke2fs-JL
 mke2fs-JL fstype blocksize device label

This creates an ext2/3/4 filesystem on "device" with an external journal on the journal labeled "label".

See also "mke2journal-L".

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "mke2fs" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  mke2fs-JU
 mke2fs-JU fstype blocksize device uuid

This creates an ext2/3/4 filesystem on "device" with an external journal on the journal with UUID "uuid".

See also "mke2journal-U".

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "mke2fs" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

This command depends on the feature "linuxfsuuid". See also "feature-available".

  mke2journal
 mke2journal blocksize device

This creates an ext2 external journal on "device". It is equivalent to the command:

 mke2fs -O journal_dev -b blocksize device

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "mke2fs" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  mke2journal-L
 mke2journal-L blocksize label device

This creates an ext2 external journal on "device" with label "label".

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "mke2fs" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  mke2journal-U
 mke2journal-U blocksize uuid device

This creates an ext2 external journal on "device" with UUID "uuid".

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "mke2fs" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

This command depends on the feature "linuxfsuuid". See also "feature-available".

  mkfifo
 mkfifo mode path

This call creates a FIFO (named pipe) called "path" with mode "mode". It is just a convenient wrapper around "mknod".

Unlike with "mknod", "mode" must contain only permissions bits.

The mode actually set is affected by the umask.

This command depends on the feature "mknod". See also "feature-available".

  mkfs

  mkfs-opts
 mkfs fstype device [blocksize:N] [features:..] [inode:N] [sectorsize:N] [label:..]

This function creates a filesystem on "device". The filesystem type is "fstype", for example "ext3".

The optional arguments are:

"blocksize"
    The filesystem block size. Supported block sizes depend on the filesystem type, but typically they are 1024, 2048 or 4096 for Linux ext2/3 filesystems.

    For VFAT and NTFS the "blocksize" parameter is treated as the requested cluster size.

    For UFS block sizes, please see mkfs.ufs(8).

"features"
    This passes the -O parameter to the external mkfs program.

    For certain filesystem types, this allows extra filesystem features to be selected. See mke2fs(8) and mkfs.ufs(8) for more details.

    You cannot use this optional parameter with the "gfs" or "gfs2" filesystem type.

"inode"
    This passes the -I parameter to the external mke2fs(8) program which sets the inode size (only for ext2/3/4 filesystems at present).

"sectorsize"
    This passes the -S parameter to external mkfs.ufs(8) program, which sets sector size for ufs filesystem.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  mkfs-b
 mkfs-b fstype blocksize device

This call is similar to "mkfs", but it allows you to control the block size of the resulting filesystem. Supported block sizes depend on the filesystem type, but typically they are 1024, 2048 or 4096 only.

For VFAT and NTFS the "blocksize" parameter is treated as the requested cluster size.

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "mkfs" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  mkfs-btrfs
 mkfs-btrfs 'devices ...' [allocstart:N] [bytecount:N] [datatype:..] [leafsize:N] [label:..] [metadata:..] [nodesize:N] [sectorsize:N]

Create a btrfs filesystem, allowing all configurables to be set. For more information on the optional arguments, see mkfs.btrfs(8).

Since btrfs filesystems can span multiple devices, this takes a non-empty list of devices.

To create general filesystems, use "mkfs".

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

This command depends on the feature "btrfs". See also "feature-available".

  mklost-and-found
 mklost-and-found mountpoint

Make the "lost+found" directory, normally in the root directory of an ext2/3/4 filesystem. "mountpoint" is the directory under which we try to create the "lost+found" directory.

  mkmountpoint
 mkmountpoint exemptpath

"mkmountpoint" and "rmmountpoint" are specialized calls that can be used to create extra mountpoints before mounting the first filesystem.

These calls are only necessary in some very limited circumstances, mainly the case where you want to mount a mix of unrelated and/or read-only filesystems together.

For example, live CDs often contain a "Russian doll" nest of filesystems, an ISO outer layer, with a squashfs image inside, with an ext2/3 image inside that. You can unpack this as follows in guestfish:

 add-ro Fedora-11-i686-Live.iso
 run
 mkmountpoint /cd
 mkmountpoint /sqsh
 mkmountpoint /ext3fs
 mount /dev/sda /cd
 mount-loop /cd/LiveOS/squashfs.img /sqsh
 mount-loop /sqsh/LiveOS/ext3fs.img /ext3fs

The inner filesystem is now unpacked under the /ext3fs mountpoint.

"mkmountpoint" is not compatible with "umount-all". You may get unexpected errors if you try to mix these calls. It is safest to manually unmount filesystems and remove mountpoints after use.

"umount-all" unmounts filesystems by sorting the paths longest first, so for this to work for manual mountpoints, you must ensure that the innermost mountpoints have the longest pathnames, as in the example code above.

For more details see https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=599503

Autosync [see "set-autosync", this is set by default on handles] can cause "umount-all" to be called when the handle is closed which can also trigger these issues.

  mknod
 mknod mode devmajor devminor path

This call creates block or character special devices, or named pipes (FIFOs).

The "mode" parameter should be the mode, using the standard constants. "devmajor" and "devminor" are the device major and minor numbers, only used when creating block and character special devices.

Note that, just like mknod(2), the mode must be bitwise OR'd with S_IFBLK, S_IFCHR, S_IFIFO or S_IFSOCK (otherwise this call just creates a regular file). These constants are available in the standard Linux header files, or you can use "mknod-b", "mknod-c" or "mkfifo" which are wrappers around this command which bitwise OR in the appropriate constant for you.

The mode actually set is affected by the umask.

This command depends on the feature "mknod". See also "feature-available".

  mknod-b
 mknod-b mode devmajor devminor path

This call creates a block device node called "path" with mode "mode" and device major/minor "devmajor" and "devminor". It is just a convenient wrapper around "mknod".

Unlike with "mknod", "mode" must contain only permissions bits.

The mode actually set is affected by the umask.

This command depends on the feature "mknod". See also "feature-available".

  mknod-c
 mknod-c mode devmajor devminor path

This call creates a char device node called "path" with mode "mode" and device major/minor "devmajor" and "devminor". It is just a convenient wrapper around "mknod".

Unlike with "mknod", "mode" must contain only permissions bits.

The mode actually set is affected by the umask.

This command depends on the feature "mknod". See also "feature-available".

  mksquashfs
 mksquashfs path (filename|-) [compress:..] [excludes:..]

Create a squashfs filesystem for the specified "path".

The optional "compress" flag controls compression. If not given, then the output compressed using "gzip". Otherwise one of the following strings may be given to select the compression type of the squashfs: "gzip", "lzma", "lzo", "lz4", "xz".

The other optional arguments are:

"excludes"
    A list of wildcards. Files are excluded if they match any of the wildcards.

Please note that this API may fail when used to compress directories with large files, such as the resulting squashfs will be over 3GB big.

Use "-" instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

This command depends on the feature "squashfs". See also "feature-available".

  mkswap

  mkswap-opts
 mkswap device [label:..] [uuid:..]

Create a Linux swap partition on "device".

The option arguments "label" and "uuid" allow you to set the label and/or UUID of the new swap partition.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  mkswap-L
 mkswap-L label device

Create a swap partition on "device" with label "label".

Note that you cannot attach a swap label to a block device (eg. /dev/sda), just to a partition. This appears to be a limitation of the kernel or swap tools.

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "mkswap" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  mkswap-U
 mkswap-U uuid device

Create a swap partition on "device" with UUID "uuid".

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "mkswap" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

This command depends on the feature "linuxfsuuid". See also "feature-available".

  mkswap-file
 mkswap-file path

Create a swap file.

This command just writes a swap file signature to an existing file. To create the file itself, use something like "fallocate".

  mktemp
 mktemp tmpl [suffix:..]

This command creates a temporary file. The "tmpl" parameter should be a full pathname for the temporary directory name with the final six characters being "XXXXXX".

For example: "/tmp/myprogXXXXXX" or "/Temp/myprogXXXXXX", the second one being suitable for Windows filesystems.

The name of the temporary file that was created is returned.

The temporary file is created with mode 0600 and is owned by root.

The caller is responsible for deleting the temporary file after use.

If the optional "suffix" parameter is given, then the suffix (eg. ".txt") is appended to the temporary name.

See also: "mkdtemp".

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  modprobe
 modprobe modulename

This loads a kernel module in the appliance.

This command depends on the feature "linuxmodules". See also "feature-available".

  mount
 mount mountable mountpoint

Mount a guest disk at a position in the filesystem. Block devices are named /dev/sda, /dev/sdb and so on, as they were added to the guest. If those block devices contain partitions, they will have the usual names (eg. /dev/sda1). Also LVM /dev/VG/LV-style names can be used, or ‘mountable’ strings returned by "list-filesystems" or "inspect-get-mountpoints".

The rules are the same as for mount(2): A filesystem must first be mounted on / before others can be mounted. Other filesystems can only be mounted on directories which already exist.

The mounted filesystem is writable, if we have sufficient permissions on the underlying device.

Before libguestfs 1.13.16, this call implicitly added the options "sync" and "noatime". The "sync" option greatly slowed writes and caused many problems for users. If your program might need to work with older versions of libguestfs, use "mount-options" instead (using an empty string for the first parameter if you don't want any options).

  mount-9p
 mount-9p mounttag mountpoint [options:..]

This call does nothing and returns an error.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

This function is deprecated. There is no replacement. Consult the API documentation in guestfs(3) for further information.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  mount-local
 mount-local localmountpoint [readonly:true|false] [options:..] [cachetimeout:N] [debugcalls:true|false]

This call exports the libguestfs-accessible filesystem to a local mountpoint (directory) called "localmountpoint". Ordinary reads and writes to files and directories under "localmountpoint" are redirected through libguestfs.

If the optional "readonly" flag is set to true, then writes to the filesystem return error "EROFS".

"options" is a comma-separated list of mount options. See guestmount(1) for some useful options.

"cachetimeout" sets the timeout (in seconds) for cached directory entries. The default is 60 seconds. See guestmount(1) for further information.

If "debugcalls" is set to true, then additional debugging information is generated for every FUSE call.

When "mount-local" returns, the filesystem is ready, but is not processing requests (access to it will block). You have to call "mount-local-run" to run the main loop.

See "MOUNT LOCAL" in guestfs(3) for full documentation.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  mount-local-run
 mount-local-run

Run the main loop which translates kernel calls to libguestfs calls.

This should only be called after "mount-local" returns successfully. The call will not return until the filesystem is unmounted.

Note you must not make concurrent libguestfs calls on the same handle from another thread.

You may call this from a different thread than the one which called "mount-local", subject to the usual rules for threads and libguestfs (see "MULTIPLE HANDLES AND MULTIPLE THREADS" in guestfs(3)).

See "MOUNT LOCAL" in guestfs(3) for full documentation.

  mount-loop
 mount-loop file mountpoint

This command lets you mount file (a filesystem image in a file) on a mount point. It is entirely equivalent to the command "mount -o loop file mountpoint".

  mount-options
 mount-options options mountable mountpoint

This is the same as the "mount" command, but it allows you to set the mount options as for the mount(8) -o flag.

If the "options" parameter is an empty string, then no options are passed (all options default to whatever the filesystem uses).

  mount-ro
 mount-ro mountable mountpoint

This is the same as the "mount" command, but it mounts the filesystem with the read-only (-o ro) flag.

  mount-vfs
 mount-vfs options vfstype mountable mountpoint

This is the same as the "mount" command, but it allows you to set both the mount options and the vfstype as for the mount(8) -o and -t flags.

  mountable-device
 mountable-device mountable

Returns the device name of a mountable. In quite a lot of cases, the mountable is the device name.

However this doesn't apply for btrfs subvolumes, where the mountable is a combination of both the device name and the subvolume path (see also "mountable-subvolume" to extract the subvolume path of the mountable if any).

  mountable-subvolume
 mountable-subvolume mountable

Returns the subvolume path of a mountable. Btrfs subvolumes mountables are a combination of both the device name and the subvolume path (see also "mountable-device" to extract the device of the mountable).

If the mountable does not represent a btrfs subvolume, then this function fails and the "errno" is set to "EINVAL".

  mountpoints
 mountpoints

This call is similar to "mounts". That call returns a list of devices. This one returns a hash table (map) of device name to directory where the device is mounted.

  mounts
 mounts

This returns the list of currently mounted filesystems. It returns the list of devices (eg. /dev/sda1, /dev/VG/LV).

Some internal mounts are not shown.

See also: "mountpoints"

  mv
 mv src dest

This moves a file from "src" to "dest" where "dest" is either a destination filename or destination directory.

See also: "rename".

  nr-devices
 nr-devices

This returns the number of whole block devices that were added. This is the same as the number of devices that would be returned if you called "list-devices".

To find out the maximum number of devices that could be added, call "max-disks".

  ntfs-3g-probe
 ntfs-3g-probe true|false device

This command runs the ntfs-3g.probe(8) command which probes an NTFS "device" for mountability. (Not all NTFS volumes can be mounted read-write, and some cannot be mounted at all).

"rw" is a boolean flag. Set it to true if you want to test if the volume can be mounted read-write. Set it to false if you want to test if the volume can be mounted read-only.

The return value is an integer which 0 if the operation would succeed, or some non-zero value documented in the ntfs-3g.probe(8) manual page.

This command depends on the feature "ntfs3g". See also "feature-available".

  ntfscat-i
 ntfscat-i device inode (filename|-)

Download a file given its inode from a NTFS filesystem and save it as filename on the local machine.

This allows to download some otherwise inaccessible files such as the ones within the $Extend folder.

The filesystem from which to extract the file must be unmounted, otherwise the call will fail.

Use "-" instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.

  ntfsclone-in
 ntfsclone-in (backupfile|-) device

Restore the "backupfile" (from a previous call to "ntfsclone-out") to "device", overwriting any existing contents of this device.

Use "-" instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.

This command depends on the feature "ntfs3g". See also "feature-available".

  ntfsclone-out
 ntfsclone-out device (backupfile|-) [metadataonly:true|false] [rescue:true|false] [ignorefscheck:true|false] [preservetimestamps:true|false] [force:true|false]

Stream the NTFS filesystem "device" to the local file "backupfile". The format used for the backup file is a special format used by the ntfsclone(8) tool.

If the optional "metadataonly" flag is true, then only the metadata is saved, losing all the user data (this is useful for diagnosing some filesystem problems).

The optional "rescue", "ignorefscheck", "preservetimestamps" and "force" flags have precise meanings detailed in the ntfsclone(8) man page.

Use "ntfsclone-in" to restore the file back to a libguestfs device.

Use "-" instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

This command depends on the feature "ntfs3g". See also "feature-available".

  ntfsfix
 ntfsfix device [clearbadsectors:true|false]

This command repairs some fundamental NTFS inconsistencies, resets the NTFS journal file, and schedules an NTFS consistency check for the first boot into Windows.

This is not an equivalent of Windows "chkdsk". It does not scan the filesystem for inconsistencies.

The optional "clearbadsectors" flag clears the list of bad sectors. This is useful after cloning a disk with bad sectors to a new disk.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

This command depends on the feature "ntfs3g". See also "feature-available".

  ntfsresize

  ntfsresize-opts
 ntfsresize device [size:N] [force:true|false]

This command resizes an NTFS filesystem, expanding or shrinking it to the size of the underlying device.

The optional parameters are:

"size"
    The new size (in bytes) of the filesystem. If omitted, the filesystem is resized to fit the container (eg. partition).

"force"
    If this option is true, then force the resize of the filesystem even if the filesystem is marked as requiring a consistency check.

    After the resize operation, the filesystem is always marked as requiring a consistency check (for safety). You have to boot into Windows to perform this check and clear this condition. If you don't set the "force" option then it is not possible to call "ntfsresize" multiple times on a single filesystem without booting into Windows between each resize.

See also ntfsresize(8).

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

This command depends on the feature "ntfsprogs". See also "feature-available".

  ntfsresize-size
 ntfsresize-size device size

This command is the same as "ntfsresize" except that it allows you to specify the new size (in bytes) explicitly.

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "ntfsresize" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

This command depends on the feature "ntfsprogs". See also "feature-available".

  parse-environment
 parse-environment

Parse the program’s environment and set flags in the handle accordingly. For example if "LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG=1" then the ‘verbose’ flag is set in the handle.

Most programs do not need to call this. It is done implicitly when you call "create".

See "ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES" in guestfs(3) for a list of environment variables that can affect libguestfs handles. See also "guestfs_create_flags" in guestfs(3), and "parse-environment-list".

  parse-environment-list
 parse-environment-list 'environment ...'

Parse the list of strings in the argument "environment" and set flags in the handle accordingly. For example if "LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG=1" is a string in the list, then the ‘verbose’ flag is set in the handle.

This is the same as "parse-environment" except that it parses an explicit list of strings instead of the program's environment.

  part-add
 part-add device prlogex startsect endsect

This command adds a partition to "device". If there is no partition table on the device, call "part-init" first.

The "prlogex" parameter is the type of partition. Normally you should pass "p" or "primary" here, but MBR partition tables also support "l" (or "logical") and "e" (or "extended") partition types.

"startsect" and "endsect" are the start and end of the partition in sectors. "endsect" may be negative, which means it counts backwards from the end of the disk (-1 is the last sector).

Creating a partition which covers the whole disk is not so easy. Use "part-disk" to do that.

  part-del
 part-del device partnum

This command deletes the partition numbered "partnum" on "device".

Note that in the case of MBR partitioning, deleting an extended partition also deletes any logical partitions it contains.

  part-disk
 part-disk device parttype

This command is simply a combination of "part-init" followed by "part-add" to create a single primary partition covering the whole disk.

"parttype" is the partition table type, usually "mbr" or "gpt", but other possible values are described in "part-init".

  part-expand-gpt
 part-expand-gpt device

Move backup GPT data structures to the end of the disk. This is useful in case of in-place image expand since disk space after backup GPT header is not usable. This is equivalent to "sgdisk -e".

See also sgdisk(8).

This command depends on the feature "gdisk". See also "feature-available".

  part-get-bootable
 part-get-bootable device partnum

This command returns true if the partition "partnum" on "device" has the bootable flag set.

See also "part-set-bootable".

  part-get-disk-guid
 part-get-disk-guid device

Return the disk identifier (GUID) of a GPT-partitioned "device". Behaviour is undefined for other partition types.

  part-get-gpt-attributes
 part-get-gpt-attributes device partnum

Return the attribute flags of numbered GPT partition "partnum". An error is returned for MBR partitions.

  part-get-gpt-guid
 part-get-gpt-guid device partnum

Return the GUID of numbered GPT partition "partnum".

  part-get-gpt-type
 part-get-gpt-type device partnum

Return the type GUID of numbered GPT partition "partnum".

  part-get-mbr-id
 part-get-mbr-id device partnum

Returns the MBR type byte (also known as the ID byte) from the numbered partition "partnum".

Note that only MBR (old DOS-style) partitions have type bytes. You will get undefined results for other partition table types (see "part-get-parttype").

  part-get-mbr-part-type
 part-get-mbr-part-type device partnum

This returns the partition type of an MBR partition numbered "partnum" on device "device".

It returns "primary", "logical", or "extended".

  part-get-name
 part-get-name device partnum

This gets the partition name on partition numbered "partnum" on device "device". Note that partitions are numbered from 1.

The partition name can only be read on certain types of partition table. This works on "gpt" but not on "mbr" partitions.

  part-get-parttype
 part-get-parttype device

This command examines the partition table on "device" and returns the partition table type (format) being used.

Common return values include: "msdos" (a DOS/Windows style MBR partition table), "gpt" (a GPT/EFI-style partition table). Other values are possible, although unusual. See "part-init" for a full list.

  part-init
 part-init device parttype

This creates an empty partition table on "device" of one of the partition types listed below. Usually "parttype" should be either "msdos" or "gpt" (for large disks).

Initially there are no partitions. Following this, you should call "part-add" for each partition required.

Possible values for "parttype" are:

"efi"
"gpt"
    Intel EFI / GPT partition table.

    This is recommended for >= 2 TB partitions that will be accessed from Linux and Intel-based Mac OS X. It also has limited backwards compatibility with the "mbr" format.

"mbr"
"msdos"
    The standard PC "Master Boot Record" (MBR) format used by MS-DOS and Windows. This partition type will only work for device sizes up to 2 TB. For large disks we recommend using "gpt".

Other partition table types that may work but are not supported include:

"aix"
    AIX disk labels.

"amiga"
"rdb"
    Amiga "Rigid Disk Block" format.

"bsd"
    BSD disk labels.

"dasd"
    DASD, used on IBM mainframes.

"dvh"
    MIPS/SGI volumes.

"mac"
    Old Mac partition format. Modern Macs use "gpt".

"pc98"
    NEC PC-98 format, common in Japan apparently.

"sun"
    Sun disk labels.

  part-list
 part-list device

This command parses the partition table on "device" and returns the list of partitions found.

The fields in the returned structure are:

"part_num"
    Partition number, counting from 1.

"part_start"
    Start of the partition in bytes. To get sectors you have to divide by the device’s sector size, see "blockdev-getss".

"part_end"
    End of the partition in bytes.

"part_size"
    Size of the partition in bytes.

  part-resize
 part-resize device partnum endsect

This command resizes the partition numbered "partnum" on "device" by moving the end position.

Note that this does not modify any filesystem present in the partition. If you wish to do this, you will need to use filesystem resizing commands like "resize2fs".

When growing a partition you will want to grow the filesystem afterwards, but when shrinking, you need to shrink the filesystem before the partition.

  part-set-bootable
 part-set-bootable device partnum true|false

This sets the bootable flag on partition numbered "partnum" on device "device". Note that partitions are numbered from 1.

The bootable flag is used by some operating systems (notably Windows) to determine which partition to boot from. It is by no means universally recognized.

  part-set-disk-guid
 part-set-disk-guid device guid

Set the disk identifier (GUID) of a GPT-partitioned "device" to "guid". Return an error if the partition table of "device" isn't GPT, or if "guid" is not a valid GUID.

  part-set-disk-guid-random
 part-set-disk-guid-random device

Set the disk identifier (GUID) of a GPT-partitioned "device" to a randomly generated value. Return an error if the partition table of "device" isn't GPT.

  part-set-gpt-attributes
 part-set-gpt-attributes device partnum attributes

Set the attribute flags of numbered GPT partition "partnum" to "attributes". Return an error if the partition table of "device" isn't GPT.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table#Partition_entries for a useful list of partition attributes.

  part-set-gpt-guid
 part-set-gpt-guid device partnum guid

Set the GUID of numbered GPT partition "partnum" to "guid". Return an error if the partition table of "device" isn't GPT, or if "guid" is not a valid GUID.

  part-set-gpt-type
 part-set-gpt-type device partnum guid

Set the type GUID of numbered GPT partition "partnum" to "guid". Return an error if the partition table of "device" isn't GPT, or if "guid" is not a valid GUID.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table#Partition_type_GUIDs for a useful list of type GUIDs.

  part-set-mbr-id
 part-set-mbr-id device partnum idbyte

Sets the MBR type byte (also known as the ID byte) of the numbered partition "partnum" to "idbyte". Note that the type bytes quoted in most documentation are in fact hexadecimal numbers, but usually documented without any leading "0x" which might be confusing.

Note that only MBR (old DOS-style) partitions have type bytes. You will get undefined results for other partition table types (see "part-get-parttype").

  part-set-name
 part-set-name device partnum name

This sets the partition name on partition numbered "partnum" on device "device". Note that partitions are numbered from 1.

The partition name can only be set on certain types of partition table. This works on "gpt" but not on "mbr" partitions.

  part-to-dev
 part-to-dev partition

This function takes a partition name (eg. "/dev/sdb1") and removes the partition number, returning the device name (eg. "/dev/sdb").

The named partition must exist, for example as a string returned from "list-partitions".

See also "part-to-partnum", "device-index".

  part-to-partnum
 part-to-partnum partition

This function takes a partition name (eg. "/dev/sdb1") and returns the partition number (eg. 1).

The named partition must exist, for example as a string returned from "list-partitions".

See also "part-to-dev".

  ping-daemon
 ping-daemon

This is a test probe into the guestfs daemon running inside the libguestfs appliance. Calling this function checks that the daemon responds to the ping message, without affecting the daemon or attached block device(s) in any other way.

  pread
 pread path count offset

This command lets you read part of a file. It reads "count" bytes of the file, starting at "offset", from file "path".

This may read fewer bytes than requested. For further details see the pread(2) system call.

See also "pwrite", "pread-device".

Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. See "PROTOCOL LIMITS" in guestfs(3).

  pread-device
 pread-device device count offset

This command lets you read part of a block device. It reads "count" bytes of "device", starting at "offset".

This may read fewer bytes than requested. For further details see the pread(2) system call.

See also "pread".

Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. See "PROTOCOL LIMITS" in guestfs(3).

  pvchange-uuid
 pvchange-uuid device

Generate a new random UUID for the physical volume "device".

This command depends on the feature "lvm2". See also "feature-available".

  pvchange-uuid-all
 pvchange-uuid-all

Generate new random UUIDs for all physical volumes.

This command depends on the feature "lvm2". See also "feature-available".

  pvcreate
 pvcreate device

This creates an LVM physical volume on the named "device", where "device" should usually be a partition name such as /dev/sda1.

This command depends on the feature "lvm2". See also "feature-available".

  pvremove
 pvremove device

This wipes a physical volume "device" so that LVM will no longer recognise it.

The implementation uses the pvremove(8) command which refuses to wipe physical volumes that contain any volume groups, so you have to remove those first.

This command depends on the feature "lvm2". See also "feature-available".

  pvresize
 pvresize device

This resizes (expands or shrinks) an existing LVM physical volume to match the new size of the underlying device.

This command depends on the feature "lvm2". See also "feature-available".

  pvresize-size
 pvresize-size device size

This command is the same as "pvresize" except that it allows you to specify the new size (in bytes) explicitly.

This command depends on the feature "lvm2". See also "feature-available".

  pvs
 pvs

List all the physical volumes detected. This is the equivalent of the pvs(8) command.

This returns a list of just the device names that contain PVs (eg. /dev/sda2).

See also "pvs-full".

This command depends on the feature "lvm2". See also "feature-available".

  pvs-full
 pvs-full

List all the physical volumes detected. This is the equivalent of the pvs(8) command. The "full" version includes all fields.

This command depends on the feature "lvm2". See also "feature-available".

  pvuuid
 pvuuid device

This command returns the UUID of the LVM PV "device".

  pwrite
 pwrite path content offset

This command writes to part of a file. It writes the data buffer "content" to the file "path" starting at offset "offset".

This command implements the pwrite(2) system call, and like that system call it may not write the full data requested. The return value is the number of bytes that were actually written to the file. This could even be 0, although short writes are unlikely for regular files in ordinary circumstances.

See also "pread", "pwrite-device".

Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. See "PROTOCOL LIMITS" in guestfs(3).

  pwrite-device
 pwrite-device device content offset

This command writes to part of a device. It writes the data buffer "content" to "device" starting at offset "offset".

This command implements the pwrite(2) system call, and like that system call it may not write the full data requested (although short writes to disk devices and partitions are probably impossible with standard Linux kernels).

See also "pwrite".

Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. See "PROTOCOL LIMITS" in guestfs(3).

  read-file
 read-file path

This calls returns the contents of the file "path" as a buffer.

Unlike "cat", this function can correctly handle files that contain embedded ASCII NUL characters.

  read-lines
 read-lines path

Return the contents of the file named "path".

The file contents are returned as a list of lines. Trailing "LF" and "CRLF" character sequences are not returned.

Note that this function cannot correctly handle binary files (specifically, files containing "\0" character which is treated as end of string). For those you need to use the "read-file" function and split the buffer into lines yourself.

  readdir
 readdir dir

This returns the list of directory entries in directory "dir".

All entries in the directory are returned, including "." and "..". The entries are not sorted, but returned in the same order as the underlying filesystem.

Also this call returns basic file type information about each file. The "ftyp" field will contain one of the following characters:

'b' Block special

'c' Char special

'd' Directory

'f' FIFO (named pipe)

'l' Symbolic link

'r' Regular file

's' Socket

'u' Unknown file type

'?' The readdir(3) call returned a "d_type" field with an unexpected value

This function is primarily intended for use by programs. To get a simple list of names, use "ls". To get a printable directory for human consumption, use "ll".

  readlink
 readlink path

This command reads the target of a symbolic link.

  readlinklist
 readlinklist path 'names ...'

This call allows you to do a "readlink" operation on multiple files, where all files are in the directory "path". "names" is the list of files from this directory.

On return you get a list of strings, with a one-to-one correspondence to the "names" list. Each string is the value of the symbolic link.

If the readlink(2) operation fails on any name, then the corresponding result string is the empty string "". However the whole operation is completed even if there were readlink(2) errors, and so you can call this function with names where you don't know if they are symbolic links already (albeit slightly less efficient).

This call is intended for programs that want to efficiently list a directory contents without making many round-trips.

  realpath
 realpath path

Return the canonicalized absolute pathname of "path". The returned path has no ".", ".." or symbolic link path elements.

  remount
 remount mountpoint [rw:true|false]

This call allows you to change the "rw" (readonly/read-write) flag on an already mounted filesystem at "mountpoint", converting a readonly filesystem to be read-write, or vice-versa.

Note that at the moment you must supply the "optional" "rw" parameter. In future we may allow other flags to be adjusted.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  remove-drive
 remove-drive label

This call does nothing and returns an error.

This function is deprecated. There is no replacement. Consult the API documentation in guestfs(3) for further information.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  removexattr
 removexattr xattr path

This call removes the extended attribute named "xattr" of the file "path".

See also: "lremovexattr", attr(5).

This command depends on the feature "linuxxattrs". See also "feature-available".

  rename
 rename oldpath newpath

Rename a file to a new place on the same filesystem. This is the same as the Linux rename(2) system call. In most cases you are better to use "mv" instead.

  resize2fs
 resize2fs device

This resizes an ext2, ext3 or ext4 filesystem to match the size of the underlying device.

See also "RESIZE2FS ERRORS" in guestfs(3).

  resize2fs-M
 resize2fs-M device

This command is the same as "resize2fs", but the filesystem is resized to its minimum size. This works like the -M option to the resize2fs(8) command.

To get the resulting size of the filesystem you should call "tune2fs-l" and read the "Block size" and "Block count" values. These two numbers, multiplied together, give the resulting size of the minimal filesystem in bytes.

See also "RESIZE2FS ERRORS" in guestfs(3).

  resize2fs-size
 resize2fs-size device size

This command is the same as "resize2fs" except that it allows you to specify the new size (in bytes) explicitly.

See also "RESIZE2FS ERRORS" in guestfs(3).

  rm
 rm path

Remove the single file "path".

  rm-f
 rm-f path

Remove the file "path".

If the file doesn't exist, that error is ignored. (Other errors, eg. I/O errors or bad paths, are not ignored)

This call cannot remove directories. Use "rmdir" to remove an empty directory, or "rm-rf" to remove directories recursively.

  rm-rf
 rm-rf path

Remove the file or directory "path", recursively removing the contents if its a directory. This is like the "rm -rf" shell command.

  rmdir
 rmdir path

Remove the single directory "path".

  rmmountpoint
 rmmountpoint exemptpath

This call removes a mountpoint that was previously created with "mkmountpoint". See "mkmountpoint" for full details.

  rsync
 rsync src dest [archive:true|false] [deletedest:true|false]

This call may be used to copy or synchronize two directories under the same libguestfs handle. This uses the rsync(1) program which uses a fast algorithm that avoids copying files unnecessarily.

"src" and "dest" are the source and destination directories. Files are copied from "src" to "dest".

The optional arguments are:

"archive"
    Turns on archive mode. This is the same as passing the --archive flag to "rsync".

"deletedest"
    Delete files at the destination that do not exist at the source.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

This command depends on the feature "rsync". See also "feature-available".

  rsync-in
 rsync-in remote dest [archive:true|false] [deletedest:true|false]

This call may be used to copy or synchronize the filesystem on the host or on a remote computer with the filesystem within libguestfs. This uses the rsync(1) program which uses a fast algorithm that avoids copying files unnecessarily.

This call only works if the network is enabled. See "set-network" or the --network option to various tools like guestfish(1).

Files are copied from the remote server and directory specified by "remote" to the destination directory "dest".

The format of the remote server string is defined by rsync(1). Note that there is no way to supply a password or passphrase so the target must be set up not to require one.

The optional arguments are the same as those of "rsync".

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

This command depends on the feature "rsync". See also "feature-available".

  rsync-out
 rsync-out src remote [archive:true|false] [deletedest:true|false]

This call may be used to copy or synchronize the filesystem within libguestfs with a filesystem on the host or on a remote computer. This uses the rsync(1) program which uses a fast algorithm that avoids copying files unnecessarily.

This call only works if the network is enabled. See "set-network" or the --network option to various tools like guestfish(1).

Files are copied from the source directory "src" to the remote server and directory specified by "remote".

The format of the remote server string is defined by rsync(1). Note that there is no way to supply a password or passphrase so the target must be set up not to require one.

The optional arguments are the same as those of "rsync".

Globbing does not happen on the "src" parameter. In programs which use the API directly you have to expand wildcards yourself (see "glob-expand"). In guestfish you can use the "glob" command (see "glob"), for example:

 ><fs> glob rsync-out /* rsync://remote/

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

This command depends on the feature "rsync". See also "feature-available".

  scrub-device
 scrub-device device

This command writes patterns over "device" to make data retrieval more difficult.

It is an interface to the scrub(1) program. See that manual page for more details.

This command depends on the feature "scrub". See also "feature-available".

  scrub-file
 scrub-file file

This command writes patterns over a file to make data retrieval more difficult.

The file is removed after scrubbing.

It is an interface to the scrub(1) program. See that manual page for more details.

This command depends on the feature "scrub". See also "feature-available".

  scrub-freespace
 scrub-freespace dir

This command creates the directory "dir" and then fills it with files until the filesystem is full, and scrubs the files as for "scrub-file", and deletes them. The intention is to scrub any free space on the partition containing "dir".

It is an interface to the scrub(1) program. See that manual page for more details.

This command depends on the feature "scrub". See also "feature-available".

  selinux-relabel
 selinux-relabel specfile path [force:true|false]

SELinux relabel parts of the filesystem.

The "specfile" parameter controls the policy spec file used. You have to parse "/etc/selinux/config" to find the correct SELinux policy and then pass the spec file, usually: "/etc/selinux/" + selinuxtype + "/contexts/files/file_contexts".

The required "path" parameter is the top level directory where relabelling starts. Normally you should pass "path" as "/" to relabel the whole guest filesystem.

The optional "force" boolean controls whether the context is reset for customizable files, and also whether the user, role and range parts of the file context is changed.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

This command depends on the feature "selinuxrelabel". See also "feature-available".

  set-append

  append
 set-append append

This function is used to add additional options to the libguestfs appliance kernel command line.

The default is "NULL" unless overridden by setting "LIBGUESTFS_APPEND" environment variable.

Setting "append" to "NULL" means no additional options are passed (libguestfs always adds a few of its own).

  set-attach-method

  attach-method
 set-attach-method backend

Set the method that libguestfs uses to connect to the backend guestfsd daemon.

See "BACKEND" in guestfs(3).

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "set-backend" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  set-autosync

  autosync
 set-autosync true|false

If "autosync" is true, this enables autosync. Libguestfs will make a best effort attempt to make filesystems consistent and synchronized when the handle is closed (also if the program exits without closing handles).

This is enabled by default (since libguestfs 1.5.24, previously it was disabled by default).

  set-backend

  backend
 set-backend backend

Set the method that libguestfs uses to connect to the backend guestfsd daemon.

This handle property was previously called the "attach method".

See "BACKEND" in guestfs(3).

  set-backend-setting
 set-backend-setting name val

Append "name=value" to the backend settings string list. However if a string already exists matching "name" or beginning with "name=", then that setting is replaced.

See "BACKEND" in guestfs(3), "BACKEND SETTINGS" in guestfs(3).

  set-backend-settings
 set-backend-settings 'settings ...'

Set a list of zero or more settings which are passed through to the current backend. Each setting is a string which is interpreted in a backend-specific way, or ignored if not understood by the backend.

The default value is an empty list, unless the environment variable "LIBGUESTFS_BACKEND_SETTINGS" was set when the handle was created. This environment variable contains a colon-separated list of settings.

This call replaces all backend settings. If you want to replace a single backend setting, see "set-backend-setting". If you want to clear a single backend setting, see "clear-backend-setting".

See "BACKEND" in guestfs(3), "BACKEND SETTINGS" in guestfs(3).

  set-cachedir

  cachedir
 set-cachedir cachedir

Set the directory used by the handle to store the appliance cache, when using a supermin appliance. The appliance is cached and shared between all handles which have the same effective user ID.

The environment variables "LIBGUESTFS_CACHEDIR" and "TMPDIR" control the default value: If "LIBGUESTFS_CACHEDIR" is set, then that is the default. Else if "TMPDIR" is set, then that is the default. Else /var/tmp is the default.

  set-direct

  direct
 set-direct true|false

If the direct appliance mode flag is enabled, then stdin and stdout are passed directly through to the appliance once it is launched.

One consequence of this is that log messages aren't caught by the library and handled by "set-log-message-callback", but go straight to stdout.

You probably don't want to use this unless you know what you are doing.

The default is disabled.

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "internal-get-console-socket" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  set-e2attrs
 set-e2attrs file attrs [clear:true|false]

This sets or clears the file attributes "attrs" associated with the inode file.

"attrs" is a string of characters representing file attributes. See "get-e2attrs" for a list of possible attributes. Not all attributes can be changed.

If optional boolean "clear" is not present or false, then the "attrs" listed are set in the inode.

If "clear" is true, then the "attrs" listed are cleared in the inode.

In both cases, other attributes not present in the "attrs" string are left unchanged.

These attributes are only present when the file is located on an ext2/3/4 filesystem. Using this call on other filesystem types will result in an error.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  set-e2generation
 set-e2generation file generation

This sets the ext2 file generation of a file.

See "get-e2generation".

  set-e2label
 set-e2label device label

This sets the ext2/3/4 filesystem label of the filesystem on "device" to "label". Filesystem labels are limited to 16 characters.

You can use either "tune2fs-l" or "get-e2label" to return the existing label on a filesystem.

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "set-label" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  set-e2uuid
 set-e2uuid device uuid

This sets the ext2/3/4 filesystem UUID of the filesystem on "device" to "uuid". The format of the UUID and alternatives such as "clear", "random" and "time" are described in the tune2fs(8) manpage.

You can use "vfs-uuid" to return the existing UUID of a filesystem.

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "set-uuid" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  set-hv

  hv
 set-hv hv

Set the hypervisor binary that we will use. The hypervisor depends on the backend, but is usually the location of the qemu/KVM hypervisor.

The default is chosen when the library was compiled by the configure script.

You can also override this by setting the "LIBGUESTFS_HV" environment variable.

Note that you should call this function as early as possible after creating the handle. This is because some pre-launch operations depend on testing qemu features (by running "qemu -help"). If the qemu binary changes, we don't retest features, and so you might see inconsistent results. Using the environment variable "LIBGUESTFS_HV" is safest of all since that picks the qemu binary at the same time as the handle is created.

  set-identifier

  identifier
 set-identifier identifier

This is an informative string which the caller may optionally set in the handle. It is printed in various places, allowing the current handle to be identified in debugging output.

One important place is when tracing is enabled. If the identifier string is not an empty string, then trace messages change from this:

 libguestfs: trace: get_tmpdir
 libguestfs: trace: get_tmpdir = "/tmp"

to this:

 libguestfs: trace: ID: get_tmpdir
 libguestfs: trace: ID: get_tmpdir = "/tmp"

where "ID" is the identifier string set by this call.

The identifier must only contain alphanumeric ASCII characters, underscore and minus sign. The default is the empty string.

See also "set-program", "set-trace", "get-identifier".

  set-label
 set-label mountable label

Set the filesystem label on "mountable" to "label".

Only some filesystem types support labels, and libguestfs supports setting labels on only a subset of these.

ext2, ext3, ext4
    Labels are limited to 16 bytes.

NTFS
    Labels are limited to 128 unicode characters.

XFS The label is limited to 12 bytes. The filesystem must not be mounted when trying to set the label.

btrfs
    The label is limited to 255 bytes and some characters are not allowed. Setting the label on a btrfs subvolume will set the label on its parent filesystem. The filesystem must not be mounted when trying to set the label.

fat The label is limited to 11 bytes.

swap
    The label is limited to 16 bytes.

If there is no support for changing the label for the type of the specified filesystem, set_label will fail and set errno as ENOTSUP.

To read the label on a filesystem, call "vfs-label".

  set-libvirt-requested-credential
 set-libvirt-requested-credential index cred

After requesting the "index"'th credential from the user, call this function to pass the answer back to libvirt.

See "LIBVIRT AUTHENTICATION" in guestfs(3) for documentation and example code.

  set-libvirt-supported-credentials
 set-libvirt-supported-credentials 'creds ...'

Call this function before setting an event handler for "GUESTFS_EVENT_LIBVIRT_AUTH", to supply the list of credential types that the program knows how to process.

The "creds" list must be a non-empty list of strings. Possible strings are:

"username"
"authname"
"language"
"cnonce"
"passphrase"
"echoprompt"
"noechoprompt"
"realm"
"external"

See libvirt documentation for the meaning of these credential types.

See "LIBVIRT AUTHENTICATION" in guestfs(3) for documentation and example code.

  set-memsize

  memsize
 set-memsize memsize

This sets the memory size in megabytes allocated to the hypervisor. This only has any effect if called before "launch".

You can also change this by setting the environment variable "LIBGUESTFS_MEMSIZE" before the handle is created.

For more information on the architecture of libguestfs, see guestfs(3).

  set-network

  network
 set-network true|false

If "network" is true, then the network is enabled in the libguestfs appliance. The default is false.

This affects whether commands are able to access the network (see "RUNNING COMMANDS" in guestfs(3)).

You must call this before calling "launch", otherwise it has no effect.

  set-path

  path
 set-path searchpath

Set the path that libguestfs searches for kernel and initrd.img.

The default is "$libdir/guestfs" unless overridden by setting "LIBGUESTFS_PATH" environment variable.

Setting "path" to "NULL" restores the default path.

  set-pgroup

  pgroup
 set-pgroup true|false

If "pgroup" is true, child processes are placed into their own process group.

The practical upshot of this is that signals like "SIGINT" (from users pressing "^C") won't be received by the child process.

The default for this flag is false, because usually you want "^C" to kill the subprocess. Guestfish sets this flag to true when used interactively, so that "^C" can cancel long-running commands gracefully (see "user-cancel").

  set-program

  program
 set-program program

Set the program name. This is an informative string which the main program may optionally set in the handle.

When the handle is created, the program name in the handle is set to the basename from "argv[0]". The program name can never be "NULL".

  set-qemu

  qemu
 set-qemu hv

Set the hypervisor binary (usually qemu) that we will use.

The default is chosen when the library was compiled by the configure script.

You can also override this by setting the "LIBGUESTFS_HV" environment variable.

Setting "hv" to "NULL" restores the default qemu binary.

Note that you should call this function as early as possible after creating the handle. This is because some pre-launch operations depend on testing qemu features (by running "qemu -help"). If the qemu binary changes, we don't retest features, and so you might see inconsistent results. Using the environment variable "LIBGUESTFS_HV" is safest of all since that picks the qemu binary at the same time as the handle is created.

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "set-hv" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  set-recovery-proc

  recovery-proc
 set-recovery-proc true|false

If this is called with the parameter "false" then "launch" does not create a recovery process. The purpose of the recovery process is to stop runaway hypervisor processes in the case where the main program aborts abruptly.

This only has any effect if called before "launch", and the default is true.

About the only time when you would want to disable this is if the main process will fork itself into the background ("daemonize" itself). In this case the recovery process thinks that the main program has disappeared and so kills the hypervisor, which is not very helpful.

  set-selinux

  selinux
 set-selinux true|false

This sets the selinux flag that is passed to the appliance at boot time. The default is "selinux=0" (disabled).

Note that if SELinux is enabled, it is always in Permissive mode ("enforcing=0").

For more information on the architecture of libguestfs, see guestfs(3).

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "selinux-relabel" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  set-smp

  smp
 set-smp smp

Change the number of virtual CPUs assigned to the appliance. The default is 1. Increasing this may improve performance, though often it has no effect.

This function must be called before "launch".

  set-tmpdir

  tmpdir
 set-tmpdir tmpdir

Set the directory used by the handle to store temporary files.

The environment variables "LIBGUESTFS_TMPDIR" and "TMPDIR" control the default value: If "LIBGUESTFS_TMPDIR" is set, then that is the default. Else if "TMPDIR" is set, then that is the default. Else /tmp is the default.

  set-trace

  trace
 set-trace true|false

If the command trace flag is set to 1, then libguestfs calls, parameters and return values are traced.

If you want to trace C API calls into libguestfs (and other libraries) then possibly a better way is to use the external ltrace(1) command.

Command traces are disabled unless the environment variable "LIBGUESTFS_TRACE" is defined and set to 1.

Trace messages are normally sent to "stderr", unless you register a callback to send them somewhere else (see "set-event-callback").

  set-uuid
 set-uuid device uuid

Set the filesystem UUID on "device" to "uuid". If this fails and the errno is ENOTSUP, means that there is no support for changing the UUID for the type of the specified filesystem.

Only some filesystem types support setting UUIDs.

To read the UUID on a filesystem, call "vfs-uuid".

  set-uuid-random
 set-uuid-random device

Set the filesystem UUID on "device" to a random UUID. If this fails and the errno is ENOTSUP, means that there is no support for changing the UUID for the type of the specified filesystem.

Only some filesystem types support setting UUIDs.

To read the UUID on a filesystem, call "vfs-uuid".

  set-verbose

  verbose
 set-verbose true|false

If "verbose" is true, this turns on verbose messages.

Verbose messages are disabled unless the environment variable "LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG" is defined and set to 1.

Verbose messages are normally sent to "stderr", unless you register a callback to send them somewhere else (see "set-event-callback").

  setcon
 setcon context

This sets the SELinux security context of the daemon to the string "context".

See the documentation about SELINUX in guestfs(3).

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "selinux-relabel" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

This command depends on the feature "selinux". See also "feature-available".

  setxattr
 setxattr xattr val vallen path

This call sets the extended attribute named "xattr" of the file "path" to the value "val" (of length "vallen"). The value is arbitrary 8 bit data.

See also: "lsetxattr", attr(5).

This command depends on the feature "linuxxattrs". See also "feature-available".

  sfdisk
 sfdisk device cyls heads sectors 'lines ...'

This is a direct interface to the sfdisk(8) program for creating partitions on block devices.

"device" should be a block device, for example /dev/sda.

"cyls", "heads" and "sectors" are the number of cylinders, heads and sectors on the device, which are passed directly to sfdisk(8) as the -C, -H and -S parameters. If you pass 0 for any of these, then the corresponding parameter is omitted. Usually for ‘large’ disks, you can just pass 0 for these, but for small (floppy-sized) disks, sfdisk(8) (or rather, the kernel) cannot work out the right geometry and you will need to tell it.

"lines" is a list of lines that we feed to sfdisk(8). For more information refer to the sfdisk(8) manpage.

To create a single partition occupying the whole disk, you would pass "lines" as a single element list, when the single element being the string "," (comma).

See also: "sfdisk-l", "sfdisk-N", "part-init"

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "part-add" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  sfdiskM
 sfdiskM device 'lines ...'

This is a simplified interface to the "sfdisk" command, where partition sizes are specified in megabytes only (rounded to the nearest cylinder) and you don't need to specify the cyls, heads and sectors parameters which were rarely if ever used anyway.

See also: "sfdisk", the sfdisk(8) manpage and "part-disk"

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "part-add" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  sfdisk-N
 sfdisk-N device partnum cyls heads sectors line

This runs sfdisk(8) option to modify just the single partition "n" (note: "n" counts from 1).

For other parameters, see "sfdisk". You should usually pass 0 for the cyls/heads/sectors parameters.

See also: "part-add"

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "part-add" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  sfdisk-disk-geometry
 sfdisk-disk-geometry device

This displays the disk geometry of "device" read from the partition table. Especially in the case where the underlying block device has been resized, this can be different from the kernel’s idea of the geometry (see "sfdisk-kernel-geometry").

The result is in human-readable format, and not designed to be parsed.

  sfdisk-kernel-geometry
 sfdisk-kernel-geometry device

This displays the kernel’s idea of the geometry of "device".

The result is in human-readable format, and not designed to be parsed.

  sfdisk-l
 sfdisk-l device

This displays the partition table on "device", in the human-readable output of the sfdisk(8) command. It is not intended to be parsed.

See also: "part-list"

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "part-list" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  sh
 sh command

This call runs a command from the guest filesystem via the guest’s /bin/sh.

This is like "command", but passes the command to:

 /bin/sh -c "command"

Depending on the guest’s shell, this usually results in wildcards being expanded, shell expressions being interpolated and so on.

All the provisos about "command" apply to this call.

  sh-lines
 sh-lines command

This is the same as "sh", but splits the result into a list of lines.

See also: "command-lines"

  sh-out
 sh-out command (output|-)

This is the same as "sh", but streams the output back, handling the case where the output from the command is larger than the protocol limit.

See also: "command-out"

Use "-" instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.

  shutdown
 shutdown

This is the opposite of "launch". It performs an orderly shutdown of the backend process(es). If the autosync flag is set (which is the default) then the disk image is synchronized.

If the subprocess exits with an error then this function will return an error, which should not be ignored (it may indicate that the disk image could not be written out properly).

It is safe to call this multiple times. Extra calls are ignored.

This call does not close or free up the handle. You still need to call "close" afterwards.

"close" will call this if you don't do it explicitly, but note that any errors are ignored in that case.

  sleep
 sleep secs

Sleep for "secs" seconds.

  stat
 stat path

Returns file information for the given "path".

This is the same as the stat(2) system call.

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "statns" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  statns
 statns path

Returns file information for the given "path".

This is the same as the stat(2) system call.

  statvfs
 statvfs path

Returns file system statistics for any mounted file system. "path" should be a file or directory in the mounted file system (typically it is the mount point itself, but it doesn't need to be).

This is the same as the statvfs(2) system call.

  strings
 strings path

This runs the strings(1) command on a file and returns the list of printable strings found.

The "strings" command has, in the past, had problems with parsing untrusted files. These are mitigated in the current version of libguestfs, but see "CVE-2014-8484" in guestfs(3).

Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. See "PROTOCOL LIMITS" in guestfs(3).

  strings-e
 strings-e encoding path

This is like the "strings" command, but allows you to specify the encoding of strings that are looked for in the source file "path".

Allowed encodings are:

s   Single 7-bit-byte characters like ASCII and the ASCII-compatible parts of ISO-8859-X (this is what "strings" uses).

S   Single 8-bit-byte characters.

b   16-bit big endian strings such as those encoded in UTF-16BE or UCS-2BE.

l (lower case letter L)
    16-bit little endian such as UTF-16LE and UCS-2LE. This is useful for examining binaries in Windows guests.

B   32-bit big endian such as UCS-4BE.

L   32-bit little endian such as UCS-4LE.

The returned strings are transcoded to UTF-8.

The "strings" command has, in the past, had problems with parsing untrusted files. These are mitigated in the current version of libguestfs, but see "CVE-2014-8484" in guestfs(3).

Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. See "PROTOCOL LIMITS" in guestfs(3).

  swapoff-device
 swapoff-device device

This command disables the libguestfs appliance swap device or partition named "device". See "swapon-device".

  swapoff-file
 swapoff-file file

This command disables the libguestfs appliance swap on file.

  swapoff-label
 swapoff-label label

This command disables the libguestfs appliance swap on labeled swap partition.

  swapoff-uuid
 swapoff-uuid uuid

This command disables the libguestfs appliance swap partition with the given UUID.

This command depends on the feature "linuxfsuuid". See also "feature-available".

  swapon-device
 swapon-device device

This command enables the libguestfs appliance to use the swap device or partition named "device". The increased memory is made available for all commands, for example those run using "command" or "sh".

Note that you should not swap to existing guest swap partitions unless you know what you are doing. They may contain hibernation information, or other information that the guest doesn't want you to trash. You also risk leaking information about the host to the guest this way. Instead, attach a new host device to the guest and swap on that.

  swapon-file
 swapon-file file

This command enables swap to a file. See "swapon-device" for other notes.

  swapon-label
 swapon-label label

This command enables swap to a labeled swap partition. See "swapon-device" for other notes.

  swapon-uuid
 swapon-uuid uuid

This command enables swap to a swap partition with the given UUID. See "swapon-device" for other notes.

This command depends on the feature "linuxfsuuid". See also "feature-available".

  sync
 sync

This syncs the disk, so that any writes are flushed through to the underlying disk image.

You should always call this if you have modified a disk image, before closing the handle.

  syslinux
 syslinux device [directory:..]

Install the SYSLINUX bootloader on "device".

The device parameter must be either a whole disk formatted as a FAT filesystem, or a partition formatted as a FAT filesystem. In the latter case, the partition should be marked as "active" ("part-set-bootable") and a Master Boot Record must be installed (eg. using "pwrite-device") on the first sector of the whole disk. The SYSLINUX package comes with some suitable Master Boot Records. See the syslinux(1) man page for further information.

The optional arguments are:

directory
    Install SYSLINUX in the named subdirectory, instead of in the root directory of the FAT filesystem.

Additional configuration can be supplied to SYSLINUX by placing a file called syslinux.cfg on the FAT filesystem, either in the root directory, or under directory if that optional argument is being used. For further information about the contents of this file, see syslinux(1).

See also "extlinux".

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

This command depends on the feature "syslinux". See also "feature-available".

  tail
 tail path

This command returns up to the last 10 lines of a file as a list of strings.

Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. See "PROTOCOL LIMITS" in guestfs(3).

  tail-n
 tail-n nrlines path

If the parameter "nrlines" is a positive number, this returns the last "nrlines" lines of the file "path".

If the parameter "nrlines" is a negative number, this returns lines from the file "path", starting with the "-nrlines"'th line.

If the parameter "nrlines" is zero, this returns an empty list.

Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. See "PROTOCOL LIMITS" in guestfs(3).

  tar-in

  tar-in-opts
 tar-in (tarfile|-) directory [compress:..] [xattrs:true|false] [selinux:true|false] [acls:true|false]

This command uploads and unpacks local file "tarfile" into directory.

The optional "compress" flag controls compression. If not given, then the input should be an uncompressed tar file. Otherwise one of the following strings may be given to select the compression type of the input file: "compress", "gzip", "bzip2", "xz", "lzop", "lzma", "zstd". (Note that not all builds of libguestfs will support all of these compression types).

The other optional arguments are:

"xattrs"
    If set to true, extended attributes are restored from the tar file.

"selinux"
    If set to true, SELinux contexts are restored from the tar file.

"acls"
    If set to true, POSIX ACLs are restored from the tar file.

Use "-" instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  tar-out

  tar-out-opts
 tar-out directory (tarfile|-) [compress:..] [numericowner:true|false] [excludes:..] [xattrs:true|false] [selinux:true|false] [acls:true|false]

This command packs the contents of directory and downloads it to local file "tarfile".

The optional "compress" flag controls compression. If not given, then the output will be an uncompressed tar file. Otherwise one of the following strings may be given to select the compression type of the output file: "compress", "gzip", "bzip2", "xz", "lzop", "lzma", "zstd". (Note that not all builds of libguestfs will support all of these compression types).

The other optional arguments are:

"excludes"
    A list of wildcards. Files are excluded if they match any of the wildcards.

"numericowner"
    If set to true, the output tar file will contain UID/GID numbers instead of user/group names.

"xattrs"
    If set to true, extended attributes are saved in the output tar.

"selinux"
    If set to true, SELinux contexts are saved in the output tar.

"acls"
    If set to true, POSIX ACLs are saved in the output tar.

Use "-" instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  tgz-in
 tgz-in (tarball|-) directory

This command uploads and unpacks local file "tarball" (a gzip compressed tar file) into directory.

Use "-" instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "tar-in" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  tgz-out
 tgz-out directory (tarball|-)

This command packs the contents of directory and downloads it to local file "tarball".

Use "-" instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "tar-out" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  touch
 touch path

Touch acts like the touch(1) command. It can be used to update the timestamps on a file, or, if the file does not exist, to create a new zero-length file.

This command only works on regular files, and will fail on other file types such as directories, symbolic links, block special etc.

  truncate
 truncate path

This command truncates "path" to a zero-length file. The file must exist already.

  truncate-size
 truncate-size path size

This command truncates "path" to size "size" bytes. The file must exist already.

If the current file size is less than "size" then the file is extended to the required size with zero bytes. This creates a sparse file (ie. disk blocks are not allocated for the file until you write to it). To create a non-sparse file of zeroes, use "fallocate64" instead.

  tune2fs
 tune2fs device [force:true|false] [maxmountcount:N] [mountcount:N] [errorbehavior:..] [group:N] [intervalbetweenchecks:N] [reservedblockspercentage:N] [lastmounteddirectory:..] [reservedblockscount:N] [user:N]

This call allows you to adjust various filesystem parameters of an ext2/ext3/ext4 filesystem called "device".

The optional parameters are:

"force"
    Force tune2fs to complete the operation even in the face of errors. This is the same as the tune2fs(8) "-f" option.

"maxmountcount"
    Set the number of mounts after which the filesystem is checked by e2fsck(8). If this is 0 then the number of mounts is disregarded. This is the same as the tune2fs(8) "-c" option.

"mountcount"
    Set the number of times the filesystem has been mounted. This is the same as the tune2fs(8) "-C" option.

"errorbehavior"
    Change the behavior of the kernel code when errors are detected. Possible values currently are: "continue", "remount-ro", "panic". In practice these options don't really make any difference, particularly for write errors.

    This is the same as the tune2fs(8) "-e" option.

"group"
    Set the group which can use reserved filesystem blocks. This is the same as the tune2fs(8) "-g" option except that it can only be specified as a number.

"intervalbetweenchecks"
    Adjust the maximal time between two filesystem checks (in seconds). If the option is passed as 0 then time-dependent checking is disabled.

    This is the same as the tune2fs(8) "-i" option.

"reservedblockspercentage"
    Set the percentage of the filesystem which may only be allocated by privileged processes. This is the same as the tune2fs(8) "-m" option.

"lastmounteddirectory"
    Set the last mounted directory. This is the same as the tune2fs(8) "-M" option.

"reservedblockscount" Set the number of reserved filesystem blocks. This is the same as the tune2fs(8) "-r" option.
"user"
    Set the user who can use the reserved filesystem blocks. This is the same as the tune2fs(8) "-u" option except that it can only be specified as a number.

To get the current values of filesystem parameters, see "tune2fs-l". For precise details of how tune2fs works, see the tune2fs(8) man page.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  tune2fs-l
 tune2fs-l device

This returns the contents of the ext2, ext3 or ext4 filesystem superblock on "device".

It is the same as running "tune2fs -l device". See tune2fs(8) manpage for more details. The list of fields returned isn't clearly defined, and depends on both the version of "tune2fs" that libguestfs was built against, and the filesystem itself.

  txz-in
 txz-in (tarball|-) directory

This command uploads and unpacks local file "tarball" (an xz compressed tar file) into directory.

Use "-" instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "tar-in" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

This command depends on the feature "xz". See also "feature-available".

  txz-out
 txz-out directory (tarball|-)

This command packs the contents of directory and downloads it to local file "tarball" (as an xz compressed tar archive).

Use "-" instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "tar-out" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

This command depends on the feature "xz". See also "feature-available".

  umask
 umask mask

This function sets the mask used for creating new files and device nodes to "mask & 0777".

Typical umask values would be 022 which creates new files with permissions like "-rw-r--r--" or "-rwxr-xr-x", and 002 which creates new files with permissions like "-rw-rw-r--" or "-rwxrwxr-x".

The default umask is 022. This is important because it means that directories and device nodes will be created with 0644 or 0755 mode even if you specify 0777.

See also "get-umask", umask(2), "mknod", "mkdir".

This call returns the previous umask.

  umount

  unmount

  umount-opts
 umount pathordevice [force:true|false] [lazyunmount:true|false]

This unmounts the given filesystem. The filesystem may be specified either by its mountpoint (path) or the device which contains the filesystem.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  umount-all

  unmount-all
 umount-all

This unmounts all mounted filesystems.

Some internal mounts are not unmounted by this call.

  umount-local
 umount-local [retry:true|false]

If libguestfs is exporting the filesystem on a local mountpoint, then this unmounts it.

See "MOUNT LOCAL" in guestfs(3) for full documentation.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

  upload
 upload (filename|-) remotefilename

Upload local file filename to remotefilename on the filesystem.

filename can also be a named pipe.

See also "download".

Use "-" instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.

  upload-offset
 upload-offset (filename|-) remotefilename offset

Upload local file filename to remotefilename on the filesystem.

remotefilename is overwritten starting at the byte "offset" specified. The intention is to overwrite parts of existing files or devices, although if a non-existent file is specified then it is created with a "hole" before "offset". The size of the data written is implicit in the size of the source filename.

Note that there is no limit on the amount of data that can be uploaded with this call, unlike with "pwrite", and this call always writes the full amount unless an error occurs.

See also "upload", "pwrite".

Use "-" instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.

  user-cancel
 user-cancel

This function cancels the current upload or download operation.

Unlike most other libguestfs calls, this function is signal safe and thread safe. You can call it from a signal handler or from another thread, without needing to do any locking.

The transfer that was in progress (if there is one) will stop shortly afterwards, and will return an error. The errno (see "guestfs_last_errno") is set to "EINTR", so you can test for this to find out if the operation was cancelled or failed because of another error.

No cleanup is performed: for example, if a file was being uploaded then after cancellation there may be a partially uploaded file. It is the caller’s responsibility to clean up if necessary.

There are two common places that you might call "user-cancel":

In an interactive text-based program, you might call it from a "SIGINT" signal handler so that pressing "^C" cancels the current operation. (You also need to call "set-pgroup" so that child processes don't receive the "^C" signal).

In a graphical program, when the main thread is displaying a progress bar with a cancel button, wire up the cancel button to call this function.

  utimens
 utimens path atsecs atnsecs mtsecs mtnsecs

This command sets the timestamps of a file with nanosecond precision.

"atsecs", "atnsecs" are the last access time (atime) in secs and nanoseconds from the epoch.

"mtsecs", "mtnsecs" are the last modification time (mtime) in secs and nanoseconds from the epoch.

If the *nsecs field contains the special value -1 then the corresponding timestamp is set to the current time. (The *secs field is ignored in this case).

If the *nsecs field contains the special value -2 then the corresponding timestamp is left unchanged. (The *secs field is ignored in this case).

  utsname
 utsname

This returns the kernel version of the appliance, where this is available. This information is only useful for debugging. Nothing in the returned structure is defined by the API.

  version
 version

Return the libguestfs version number that the program is linked against.

Note that because of dynamic linking this is not necessarily the version of libguestfs that you compiled against. You can compile the program, and then at runtime dynamically link against a completely different libguestfs.so library.

This call was added in version 1.0.58. In previous versions of libguestfs there was no way to get the version number. From C code you can use dynamic linker functions to find out if this symbol exists (if it doesn't, then it’s an earlier version).

The call returns a structure with four elements. The first three ("major", "minor" and "release") are numbers and correspond to the usual version triplet. The fourth element ("extra") is a string and is normally empty, but may be used for distro-specific information.

To construct the original version string: "$major.$minor.$release$extra"

See also: "LIBGUESTFS VERSION NUMBERS" in guestfs(3).

Note: Don't use this call to test for availability of features. In enterprise distributions we backport features from later versions into earlier versions, making this an unreliable way to test for features. Use "available" or "feature-available" instead.

  vfs-label
 vfs-label mountable

This returns the label of the filesystem on "mountable".

If the filesystem is unlabeled, this returns the empty string.

To find a filesystem from the label, use "findfs-label".

  vfs-minimum-size
 vfs-minimum-size mountable

Get the minimum size of filesystem in bytes. This is the minimum possible size for filesystem shrinking.

If getting minimum size of specified filesystem is not supported, this will fail and set errno as ENOTSUP.

See also ntfsresize(8), resize2fs(8), btrfs(8), xfs_info(8).

  vfs-type
 vfs-type mountable

This command gets the filesystem type corresponding to the filesystem on "mountable".

For most filesystems, the result is the name of the Linux VFS module which would be used to mount this filesystem if you mounted it without specifying the filesystem type. For example a string such as "ext3" or "ntfs".

  vfs-uuid

  get-uuid
 vfs-uuid mountable

This returns the filesystem UUID of the filesystem on "mountable".

If the filesystem does not have a UUID, this returns the empty string.

To find a filesystem from the UUID, use "findfs-uuid".

  vg-activate
 vg-activate true|false 'volgroups ...'

This command activates or (if "activate" is false) deactivates all logical volumes in the listed volume groups "volgroups".

This command is the same as running "vgchange -a y|n volgroups..."

Note that if "volgroups" is an empty list then all volume groups are activated or deactivated.

This command depends on the feature "lvm2". See also "feature-available".

  vg-activate-all
 vg-activate-all true|false

This command activates or (if "activate" is false) deactivates all logical volumes in all volume groups.

This command is the same as running "vgchange -a y|n"

This command depends on the feature "lvm2". See also "feature-available".

  vgchange-uuid
 vgchange-uuid vg

Generate a new random UUID for the volume group "vg".

This command depends on the feature "lvm2". See also "feature-available".

  vgchange-uuid-all
 vgchange-uuid-all

Generate new random UUIDs for all volume groups.

This command depends on the feature "lvm2". See also "feature-available".

  vgcreate
 vgcreate volgroup 'physvols ...'

This creates an LVM volume group called "volgroup" from the non-empty list of physical volumes "physvols".

This command depends on the feature "lvm2". See also "feature-available".

  vglvuuids
 vglvuuids vgname

Given a VG called "vgname", this returns the UUIDs of all the logical volumes created in this volume group.

You can use this along with "lvs" and "lvuuid" calls to associate logical volumes and volume groups.

See also "vgpvuuids".

  vgmeta
 vgmeta vgname

"vgname" is an LVM volume group. This command examines the volume group and returns its metadata.

Note that the metadata is an internal structure used by LVM, subject to change at any time, and is provided for information only.

This command depends on the feature "lvm2". See also "feature-available".

  vgpvuuids
 vgpvuuids vgname

Given a VG called "vgname", this returns the UUIDs of all the physical volumes that this volume group resides on.

You can use this along with "pvs" and "pvuuid" calls to associate physical volumes and volume groups.

See also "vglvuuids".

  vgremove
 vgremove vgname

Remove an LVM volume group "vgname", (for example "VG").

This also forcibly removes all logical volumes in the volume group (if any).

This command depends on the feature "lvm2". See also "feature-available".

  vgrename
 vgrename volgroup newvolgroup

Rename a volume group "volgroup" with the new name "newvolgroup".

  vgs
 vgs

List all the volumes groups detected. This is the equivalent of the vgs(8) command.

This returns a list of just the volume group names that were detected (eg. "VolGroup00").

See also "vgs-full".

This command depends on the feature "lvm2". See also "feature-available".

  vgs-full
 vgs-full

List all the volumes groups detected. This is the equivalent of the vgs(8) command. The "full" version includes all fields.

This command depends on the feature "lvm2". See also "feature-available".

  vgscan
 vgscan

This rescans all block devices and rebuilds the list of LVM physical volumes, volume groups and logical volumes.

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "lvm-scan" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  vguuid
 vguuid vgname

This command returns the UUID of the LVM VG named "vgname".

  wc-c
 wc-c path

This command counts the characters in a file, using the "wc -c" external command.

  wc-l
 wc-l path

This command counts the lines in a file, using the "wc -l" external command.

  wc-w
 wc-w path

This command counts the words in a file, using the "wc -w" external command.

  wipefs
 wipefs device

This command erases filesystem or RAID signatures from the specified "device" to make the filesystem invisible to libblkid.

This does not erase the filesystem itself nor any other data from the "device".

Compare with "zero" which zeroes the first few blocks of a device.

This command depends on the feature "wipefs". See also "feature-available".

  write
 write path content

This call creates a file called "path". The content of the file is the string "content" (which can contain any 8 bit data).

See also "write-append".

  write-append
 write-append path content

This call appends "content" to the end of file "path". If "path" does not exist, then a new file is created.

See also "write".

  write-file
 write-file path content size

This call creates a file called "path". The contents of the file is the string "content" (which can contain any 8 bit data), with length "size".

As a special case, if "size" is 0 then the length is calculated using "strlen" (so in this case the content cannot contain embedded ASCII NULs).

NB. Owing to a bug, writing content containing ASCII NUL characters does not work, even if the length is specified.

Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. See "PROTOCOL LIMITS" in guestfs(3).

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "write" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  xfs-admin
 xfs-admin device [extunwritten:true|false] [imgfile:true|false] [v2log:true|false] [projid32bit:true|false] [lazycounter:true|false] [label:..] [uuid:..]

Change the parameters of the XFS filesystem on "device".

Devices that are mounted cannot be modified. Administrators must unmount filesystems before this call can modify parameters.

Some of the parameters of a mounted filesystem can be examined and modified using the "xfs-info" and "xfs-growfs" calls.

Beginning with XFS version 5, it is no longer possible to modify the lazy-counters setting (ie. "lazycounter" parameter has no effect).

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

This command depends on the feature "xfs". See also "feature-available".

  xfs-growfs
 xfs-growfs path [datasec:true|false] [logsec:true|false] [rtsec:true|false] [datasize:N] [logsize:N] [rtsize:N] [rtextsize:N] [maxpct:N]

Grow the XFS filesystem mounted at "path".

The returned struct contains geometry information. Missing fields are returned as -1 (for numeric fields) or empty string.

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

This command depends on the feature "xfs". See also "feature-available".

  xfs-info
 xfs-info pathordevice

"pathordevice" is a mounted XFS filesystem or a device containing an XFS filesystem. This command returns the geometry of the filesystem.

The returned struct contains geometry information. Missing fields are returned as -1 (for numeric fields) or empty string.

This command depends on the feature "xfs". See also "feature-available".

  xfs-repair
 xfs-repair device [forcelogzero:true|false] [nomodify:true|false] [noprefetch:true|false] [forcegeometry:true|false] [maxmem:N] [ihashsize:N] [bhashsize:N] [agstride:N] [logdev:..] [rtdev:..]

Repair corrupt or damaged XFS filesystem on "device".

The filesystem is specified using the "device" argument which should be the device name of the disk partition or volume containing the filesystem. If given the name of a block device, "xfs_repair" will attempt to find the raw device associated with the specified block device and will use the raw device instead.

Regardless, the filesystem to be repaired must be unmounted, otherwise, the resulting filesystem may be inconsistent or corrupt.

The returned status indicates whether filesystem corruption was detected (returns 1) or was not detected (returns 0).

This command has one or more optional arguments. See "OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS".

This command depends on the feature "xfs". See also "feature-available".

  yara-destroy
 yara-destroy

Destroy previously loaded Yara rules in order to free libguestfs resources.

This command depends on the feature "libyara". See also "feature-available".

  yara-load
 yara-load (filename|-)

Upload a set of Yara rules from local file filename.

Yara rules allow to categorize files based on textual or binary patterns within their content. See "yara-scan" to see how to scan files with the loaded rules.

Rules can be in binary format, as when compiled with yarac command, or in source code format. In the latter case, the rules will be first compiled and then loaded.

Rules in source code format cannot include external files. In such cases, it is recommended to compile them first.

Previously loaded rules will be destroyed.

Use "-" instead of a filename to read/write from stdin/stdout.

This command depends on the feature "libyara". See also "feature-available".

  yara-scan
 yara-scan path

Scan a file with the previously loaded Yara rules.

For each matching rule, a "yara_detection" structure is returned.

The "yara_detection" structure contains the following fields.

"yara_name"
    Path of the file matching a Yara rule.

"yara_rule"
    Identifier of the Yara rule which matched against the given file.

This command depends on the feature "libyara". See also "feature-available".

  zegrep
 zegrep regex path

This calls the external "zegrep" program and returns the matching lines.

Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. See "PROTOCOL LIMITS" in guestfs(3).

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "grep" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  zegrepi
 zegrepi regex path

This calls the external "zegrep -i" program and returns the matching lines.

Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. See "PROTOCOL LIMITS" in guestfs(3).

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "grep" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  zero
 zero device

This command writes zeroes over the first few blocks of "device".

How many blocks are zeroed isn't specified (but it’s not enough to securely wipe the device). It should be sufficient to remove any partition tables, filesystem superblocks and so on.

If blocks are already zero, then this command avoids writing zeroes. This prevents the underlying device from becoming non-sparse or growing unnecessarily.

See also: "zero-device", "scrub-device", "is-zero-device"

  zero-device
 zero-device device

This command writes zeroes over the entire "device". Compare with "zero" which just zeroes the first few blocks of a device.

If blocks are already zero, then this command avoids writing zeroes. This prevents the underlying device from becoming non-sparse or growing unnecessarily.

  zero-free-space
 zero-free-space directory

Zero the free space in the filesystem mounted on directory. The filesystem must be mounted read-write.

The filesystem contents are not affected, but any free space in the filesystem is freed.

Free space is not "trimmed". You may want to call "fstrim" either as an alternative to this, or after calling this, depending on your requirements.

  zerofree
 zerofree device

This runs the zerofree program on "device". This program claims to zero unused inodes and disk blocks on an ext2/3 filesystem, thus making it possible to compress the filesystem more effectively.

You should not run this program if the filesystem is mounted.

It is possible that using this program can damage the filesystem or data on the filesystem.

This command depends on the feature "zerofree". See also "feature-available".

  zfgrep
 zfgrep pattern path

This calls the external "zfgrep" program and returns the matching lines.

Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. See "PROTOCOL LIMITS" in guestfs(3).

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "grep" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  zfgrepi
 zfgrepi pattern path

This calls the external "zfgrep -i" program and returns the matching lines.

Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. See "PROTOCOL LIMITS" in guestfs(3).

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "grep" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  zfile
 zfile meth path

This command runs file(1) after first decompressing "path" using "meth".

"meth" must be one of "gzip", "compress" or "bzip2".

Since 1.0.63, use "file" instead which can now process compressed files.

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "file" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  zgrep
 zgrep regex path

This calls the external zgrep(1) program and returns the matching lines.

Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. See "PROTOCOL LIMITS" in guestfs(3).

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "grep" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

  zgrepi
 zgrepi regex path

This calls the external "zgrep -i" program and returns the matching lines.

Because of the message protocol, there is a transfer limit of somewhere between 2MB and 4MB. See "PROTOCOL LIMITS" in guestfs(3).

This function is deprecated. In new code, use the "grep" call instead.

Deprecated functions will not be removed from the API, but the fact that they are deprecated indicates that there are problems with correct use of these functions.

EXIT STATUS
guestfish returns 0 if the commands completed without error, or 1 if there was an error.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

EDITOR
    The "edit" command uses $EDITOR as the editor. If not set, it uses "vi".

GUESTFISH_DISPLAY_IMAGE
    The "display" command uses $GUESTFISH_DISPLAY_IMAGE to display images. If not set, it uses display(1).

GUESTFISH_INIT
    Printed when guestfish starts. See "PROMPT".

GUESTFISH_OUTPUT
    Printed before guestfish output. See "PROMPT".

GUESTFISH_PID
    Used with the --remote option to specify the remote guestfish process to control. See section "REMOTE CONTROL GUESTFISH OVER A SOCKET".

GUESTFISH_PS1
    Set the command prompt. See "PROMPT".

GUESTFISH_RESTORE
    Printed before guestfish exits. See "PROMPT".

HEXEDITOR
    The "hexedit" command uses $HEXEDITOR as the external hex editor. If not specified, the external hexedit(1) program is used.

HOME
    If compiled with GNU readline support, various files in the home directory can be used. See "FILES".

LIBGUESTFS_APPEND
    Pass additional options to the guest kernel.

LIBGUESTFS_ATTACH_METHOD
    This is the old way to set "LIBGUESTFS_BACKEND".

LIBGUESTFS_BACKEND
    Choose the default way to create the appliance. See "guestfs_set_backend" in guestfs(3).

LIBGUESTFS_BACKEND_SETTINGS
    A colon-separated list of backend-specific settings. See "BACKEND" in guestfs(3), "BACKEND SETTINGS" in guestfs(3).

LIBGUESTFS_CACHEDIR
    The location where libguestfs will cache its appliance, when using a supermin appliance. The appliance is cached and shared between all handles which have the same effective user ID.

    If "LIBGUESTFS_CACHEDIR" is not set, then "TMPDIR" is used. If "TMPDIR" is not set, then /var/tmp is used.

    See also "LIBGUESTFS_TMPDIR", "set-cachedir".

LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG
    Set "LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG=1" to enable verbose messages. This has the same effect as using the -v option.

LIBGUESTFS_HV
    Set the default hypervisor (usually qemu) binary that libguestfs uses. If not set, then the qemu which was found at compile time by the configure script is used.

LIBGUESTFS_MEMSIZE
    Set the memory allocated to the qemu process, in megabytes. For example:

     LIBGUESTFS_MEMSIZE=700

LIBGUESTFS_PATH
    Set the path that guestfish uses to search for kernel and initrd.img. See the discussion of paths in guestfs(3).

LIBGUESTFS_QEMU
    This is the old way to set "LIBGUESTFS_HV".

LIBGUESTFS_TMPDIR
    The location where libguestfs will store temporary files used by each handle.

    If "LIBGUESTFS_TMPDIR" is not set, then "TMPDIR" is used. If "TMPDIR" is not set, then /tmp is used.

    See also "LIBGUESTFS_CACHEDIR", "set-tmpdir".

LIBGUESTFS_TRACE
    Set "LIBGUESTFS_TRACE=1" to enable command traces.

PAGER
    The "more" command uses $PAGER as the pager. If not set, it uses "more".

PATH
    Libguestfs and guestfish may run some external programs, and rely on $PATH being set to a reasonable value. If using the libvirt backend, libvirt will not work at all unless $PATH contains the path of qemu/KVM.

SUPERMIN_KERNEL
SUPERMIN_KERNEL_VERSION
SUPERMIN_MODULES
    These three environment variables allow the kernel that libguestfs uses in the appliance to be selected. If $SUPERMIN_KERNEL is not set, then the most recent host kernel is chosen. For more information about kernel selection, see supermin(1).

TMPDIR
    See "LIBGUESTFS_CACHEDIR", "LIBGUESTFS_TMPDIR".

XDG_RUNTIME_DIR
    This directory represents a user-specific directory for storing non-essential runtime files.

    If it is set, then is used to store temporary sockets and PID files. Otherwise, /tmp is used.

    See also "get-sockdir", http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/basedir-spec/.

FILES

$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/libguestfs/libguestfs-tools.conf
$HOME/.libguestfs-tools.rc
$XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/libguestfs/libguestfs-tools.conf
/etc/libguestfs-tools.conf
    This configuration file controls the default read-only or read-write mode (--ro or --rw).

    See libguestfs-tools.conf(5).

$HOME/.guestfish
    If compiled with GNU readline support, then the command history is saved in this file.

$HOME/.inputrc
/etc/inputrc
    If compiled with GNU readline support, then these files can be used to configure readline. For further information, please see "INITIALIZATION FILE" in readline(3).

    To write rules which only apply to guestfish, use:

     $if guestfish
     ...
     $endif

    Variables that you can set in inputrc that change the behaviour of guestfish in useful ways include:

    completion-ignore-case (default: on)
        By default, guestfish will ignore case when tab-completing paths on the disk. Use:

         set completion-ignore-case off

        to make guestfish case sensitive.

test1.img
test2.img (etc)
    When using the -N or --new option, the prepared disk or filesystem will be created in the file test1.img in the current directory. The second use of -N will use test2.img and so on. Any existing file with the same name will be overwritten. You can use a different filename by using the "filename=" prefix.

SEE ALSO
guestfs(3), http://libguestfs.org/, virt-alignment-scan(1), virt-builder(1), virt-builder-repository(1), virt-cat(1), virt-copy-in(1), virt-copy-out(1), virt-customize(1), virt-df(1), virt-diff(1), virt-edit(1), virt-filesystems(1), virt-inspector(1), virt-list-filesystems(1), virt-list-partitions(1), virt-log(1), virt-ls(1), virt-make-fs(1), virt-p2v(1), virt-rescue(1), virt-resize(1), virt-sparsify(1), virt-sysprep(1), virt-tail(1), virt-tar(1), virt-tar-in(1), virt-tar-out(1), virt-v2v(1), virt-win-reg(1), libguestfs-tools.conf(5), display(1), hexedit(1), supermin(1).

AUTHORS
Richard W.M. Jones ("rjones at redhat dot com")

COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2009-2025 Red Hat Inc.

LICENSE
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.

BUGS
To get a list of bugs against libguestfs, use this link: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/buglist.cgi?component=libguestfs&product=Virtualization+Tools

To report a new bug against libguestfs, use this link: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/enter_bug.cgi?component=libguestfs&product=Virtualization+Tools

When reporting a bug, please supply:

•   The version of libguestfs.

•   Where you got libguestfs (eg. which Linux distro, compiled from source, etc)

•   Describe the bug accurately and give a way to reproduce it.

•   Run libguestfs-test-tool(1) and paste the complete, unedited output into the bug report.