[ANNOUNCE] libguestfs 1.10.0 - tools for accessing and modifying VM disk images
by Richard W.M. Jones
I'm happy to announce that after 5 months of development, the new
stable version of libguestfs is available. libguestfs is a set of
tools and a library for accessing, creating and modifying the contents
of virtual machines and disk images.
Home page: http://libguestfs.org/
Binary packages for:
Fedora: http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/packageinfo?packageID=8391
(available within 24 hours)
Debian: http://libguestfs.org/download/binaries/debian-packages/
(coming in 1-2 days)
Ubuntu: http://libguestfs.org/download/binaries/ubuntu-packages/
(coming in 1-2 days)
The new stable 1.10.0 version brings many enhancements. The full
release notes are attached below, or you can read them on the website
at http://libguestfs.org/RELEASE-NOTES.txt
Release notes for libguestfs 1.10.0
-----------------------------------
These release notes only cover the differences from the previous
stable/dev branch split (1.8.0). For detailed changelogs, please see
the git repository, or the ChangeLog file distributed in the tarball.
New features
- libguestfs and tools can be used against live virtual machines.
See the 'guestfish --live' and 'guestmount --live' options, and (for
the low-level interface) the new APIs set-attach-method and
get-attach-method.
- New virt tools:
virt-copy-in, virt-copy-out, virt-tar-in, virt-tar-out.
- libguestfs can get the drive letter mappings for Windows guests.
- virt-inspector displays drive letter mappings for Windows guests.
- Drive letters can now be used in virt-edit and guestfish programs
when operating on Windows guests.
- virt-resize now works on 32 bit hosts.
- You can now inspect the install disks and live CDs of many different
operating systems.
- guestfish <! cmd which executes a shell cmd and inlines the result.
- guestfish, guestmount, virt-rescue now all support --ro and --rw
options, and the default for this can be chosen via a configuration
file (/etc/libguestfs-tools.conf).
- New event API allows more than one callback to be registered for
each event, makes it possible to call the API from other languages,
and allows nearly all log, debug and trace messages to be rerouted
from stderr.
- Greater FHS compliance for temporary files, including using /var/tmp
for large cached files that should survive reboot (instead of /tmp).
- guestfish, guestmount -m option allows mount options to be passed
through to the underlying filesystem.
- mkfs-opts allows filesystem features to be specified.
- More intelligent handling of mountpoints, allowing mkmountpoint, mount
and umount-all commands to work together properly.
- Trace messages are prefixed with a distinct string, allowing them to
be easily 'grepped' out from debug output.
- guestfs_launch (guestfish 'run' command) now produces progress
messages (a guestfish progress bar) if it takes longer than 5
seconds to run.
- Several long-running commands where we are unable to estimate time
to completion generate "pulse mode" progress events. Progress bar
in guestfish has been updated to display these.
- Publish new example code in: C, Perl, Python, OCaml, Ruby.
- New virt-dhcp-address example program.
- The Java and Ruby bindings have been improved greatly.
- Perl includes a way to get the errno of the last error.
- Python bindings now compatible with rpyc (thanks Erez Shinan).
- Transifex is now being used to manage translations.
http://www.transifex.net/projects/p/libguestfs/
- Inspection now supports Red Hat Desktop, Slackware distributions.
- Inspection no longer fails for Windows guests that have two or
more disks.
- Inspection can now tell the difference between Windows 2008 Server
and Windows 7.
- Inspection can detect 32 bit applications installed in 64 bit
Windows, running on the WOW64 emulator.
- A series of protocol fixes has fixed the old bug RHBZ#576879
which used to cause errors during the upload command to lose
protocol synchronization.
- New logo!
Security
[none]
New APIs
first-private, get-attach-method, inspect-get-drive-mappings,
inspect-get-product-variant,
inspect-get-windows-current-control-set, next-private, resize2fs-M,
set-attach-method.
Internals
- The 'HACKING' file is obsolete. The contents have been moved into
a section of the guestfs(3) manual page.
- libguestfs-test-tool simplified. It no longer needs the static
binary or tries to construct an ISO.
- rpcgen-generated files are compiled with -fno-strict-aliasing
which should be safer (thanks Matt Booth).
- virt-resize was rewritten in OCaml.
- guestfish and other tools tested with valgrind; some memory leaks
were fixed.
Bugs fixed
- 502533 Updated Polish translation of libguestfs
- 576879 libguestfs protocol loses synchronization if you 'upload' before mounting disks
- 599503 document that mkmountpoint and umount-all cannot be mixed
- 617440 guestfish: fails to tilde expand '~' when the $HOME env is unset
- 664558 RFE: Allow to set log callback in Ruby bindings
- 665358 Punjabi Translation Completed (pa_IN)
- 666577 libguestfs: unknown filesystem /dev/fd0
- 667610 Multiple bugs, memory leaks in libguestfs ruby bindings
- 668112 virt-filesystems command fails on guest with corrupt filesystem label
- 668574 guestfish -i is trying to mount all mounts from /etc/fstab and fails with an error when device doesn't exists
- 673479 Add a grep-friendly string to LIBGUESTFS_TRACE output
- 674130 Inspection code fails for Windows guest with two disks
- 682756 libguestfs trace segfaults when list-filesystems returns error
- 682979 libguestfs incorrectly detects Red Hat desktop as 'redhat-based' instead of 'redhat'
- 690819 mkfs fails creating a filesytem on a disk device when using a disk with 'ide' interface
- 691389 Extended attributes don't work over guestmount (FUSE)
- 691724 virt-inspector reports unknown filesystem /dev/vda1
- 692545 inspect-list-applications fails to detect 32 bit apps installed under WOW64 emulator on 64 bit Windows
- 693324 sfdisk's python interface only accepts lists of type 'list' for the lines parameter
Rich.
--
Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones
New in Fedora 11: Fedora Windows cross-compiler. Compile Windows
programs, test, and build Windows installers. Over 70 libraries supprt'd
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/MinGW http://www.annexia.org/fedora_mingw
13 years
virtio requires KVM?
by Konstantin Svist
I installed a Win2000 guest on a x86_64 host - but the host doesn't have
virt CPU features, so it's plain qemu, not KVM.
Spice video works just fine (except that so far I didn't find win2k
guest driver for it)
At the same time, virtio disk and network drivers are not available in
the GUI -- most likely because KVM is not available.
So, is it a bug in libvirt or do they really require hardware support?
Unrelated, there's a bug in libvirt -- when spice video is used, "Resize
to VM" doesn't work.. but that's probably a known bug.
13 years
win7 and vdagent: useful for upcoming test day?
by Gianluca Cecchi
Hello,
currently on my F14 configured with virt-preview repo I have a Win7 32bit guest.
It is running ok, with both network and disk configured as virtio devices.
As I think w7 is becoming more and more used and so could be fine to
have it running with all possible functionalities in Qemu/KVM for F15
I think that being able to copy/paste to/from guest would be
desirable...
If you think the same, I would need some clarification before testing day:
a) with current releases of qemu-kvm, libvirt, virt-manager and spice
pieces in virt-preview is this test feasible?
If so:
b) if I understand well, I "only" need to have vdagent to work in
guest and so I presume I should have a line with these parameters
(from http://spice-space.org/page/Whiteboard/AgentProtocol)
-device virtio-serial-pci,id=virtio-serial0,max_ports=16,bus=pci.0,addr=0x5
-chardev spicevmc,name=vdagent,id=vdagent
-device virtserialport,nr=1,bus=virtio-serial0.0,chardev=vdagent,name=com.redhat.spice.0
Do I have to setup a wrapper or does exist a config setting in
virt-manager for it to be added?
My current command line when I start the guest from virt-manager is:
/usr/bin/qemu-kvm -S -M pc-0.14 -enable-kvm -m 1536 -smp
1,sockets=1,cores=1,threads=1 -name w7test -uuid
de5dbc9e-14f0-f56b-8e8a-4f4986d61ad8 -nodefconfig -nodefaults -chardev
socket,id=charmonitor,path=/var/lib/libvirt/qemu/w7test.monitor,server,nowait
-mon chardev=charmonitor,id=monitor,mode=control -rtc base=localtime
-boot order=dc,menu=off -drive if=none,id=drive-fdc0-0-0,format=raw
-global isa-fdc.driveA=drive-fdc0-0-0 -drive
if=none,media=cdrom,id=drive-ide0-1-0,readonly=on,format=raw -device
ide-drive,bus=ide.1,unit=0,drive=drive-ide0-1-0,id=ide0-1-0 -drive
file=/var/lib/libvirt/images/w7test.img,if=none,id=drive-virtio-disk0,boot=on,format=raw
-device virtio-blk-pci,bus=pci.0,addr=0x6,drive=drive-virtio-disk0,id=virtio-disk0
-netdev tap,fd=21,id=hostnet0 -device
virtio-net-pci,netdev=hostnet0,id=net0,mac=52:54:00:d3:8e:29,bus=pci.0,addr=0x3
-chardev pty,id=charserial0 -device
isa-serial,chardev=charserial0,id=serial0 -usb -device
usb-tablet,id=input0 -spice port=5900,addr=127.0.0.1,disable-ticketing
-vga qxl -device AC97,id=sound0,bus=pci.0,addr=0x4 -device
virtio-balloon-pci,id=balloon0,bus=pci.0,addr=0x5
Based on my current line that already contains "-device
virtio-balloon-pci,id=balloon0,bus=pci.0,addr=0x5", does this mean
that for vdagent part, if I use the wrapper I should use instead
"bus=pci.0,addr=0x6"??
c) which kind of vdagent sw do I need to download and install on guest side?
Is it ok vdagent-win32-0.6.3.zip for win7? Do I need also
vioserial-win-1.1.16.zip or not?
d) any other suggestions?
BTW: I remember for past year test day in F13+virt-preview there was a
page with a list of tests to do. Is there a similar one or is it going
to be written?
Thanks in advance,
Gianluca
13 years
Fedora virt status
by Justin Forbes
Fedora 14
- We have 103 open bugs, 16 of which have fixes in awaiting updates.
- 1 bugs have been closed in the last week
Fedora 15
- Upcoming Deadlines:
2011-04-05 Beta Change Deadline Features 100% Complete *today*
2011-04-19 Beta Release
2011-05-09 Final Change Deadline
2011-05-10 Compose 'Final' RC
2011-05-24 Fedora 15 Final Release
- Virtualization Test Day is coming up on Thursday, April 14th. That is
just 1 week away. Please mark your calendars, and join us for testing
and bug hunting. The more we can uncover before release, the better
off we are.
- There are currently 60 bugs open against rawhide/F15.
== Updates Needing review ==
The following packages are in updates-testing and need review and karma as
appropriate:
F13:
- libvirt-0.8.2-3.fc13
fix a lack of API check on read-only connections this build fix one crash
in the the error handling fix a lack of API check on read-only connections
- python-virtinst-0.500.4-2
virt-install: Fix post install check from erroring (bz 628721)
virt-install: Don't lowercase kernel args (bz 646029)
virt-install: Fix installing to iscsi volume (bz 647241)
virt-install: Fix setting default keymap (bz 636907)
virt-install: Add ubuntu 10.10 os option (bz 642441)
virt-install: Fix locale error if paging --help (bz 655328)
F14:
- libvirt-0.8.3-6.fc14
fix a lack of API check on read-only connections this build fix one crash
in the the error handling fix a lack of API check on read-only connections
- python-virtinst-0.500.6-1
Rebased to version 0.500.6
virt-install: --graphics spice now enables spicevmc and qxl
virt-install: New --disk parameter io=native|threads
- virt-manager-0.8.7-1
Rebased to version 0.8.7
Allow renaming an offline VM Spice password support (Marc-André Lureau)
Allow editting NIC <virtualport> settings (Gerhard Stenzel)
Allow enabling/disabling individual CPU features
Allow easily changing graphics type between VNC/SPICE for existing VM
Allow easily changing network source device for existing VM Fix a couple
configure options
== Virt Preview Repository ==
The virt-preview repository is now active for F14 users wishing to run the
latest F15 virt packages on their stable F14 systems. F13 virt-preview users
will still get the latest F14 packages. For details on how to run enable
virt-preview, please see:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Virtualization_Preview_Repository
== Bugs of importance: ==
- 679179 Openbios-ppc subpackage disappeared
This blocker bug has been closed, updates are available in F15 and F14
virt-preview
- 693530 Qemu does the wrong thing with Cache=None and looks like corruption
btrfs complains about corruption when Windows guests do certain types of
writes with cache=none.
13 years
windows 7 guest and acpi/apic with virt-preview
by Gianluca Cecchi
hello,
using Fedora 14 and virt-preview.
I notice that my windows 7 guest 32bit has neither acpi nor apic enabled.
trying to enable one of them in virt-manager it gets automatically
reset and in virt-manager.log I get:
[Thu, 31 Mar 2011 00:13:54 virt-manager 17300] DEBUG
(libvirtobject:144) Redefine requested, but XML didn't change!
Is there any reason, such as not supported and automatically black
listed in any way... or a bug?
At the moment I have 3 guests: w2k3, w7 and centos 5 and this problem
is present for all of them...
I noticed this because after half an hour of inactivity my windows 7
went in black screen and no other way than powering off...
I saw that by default sleep was enabled after 30 minutes. At first I'm
disabling it, but I think that actually the problem of this freeze
could depend by acpi not enabled...
so I discovered the problem
virt-manager-0.8.6-1.fc14.noarch
libvirt-0.8.8-2.fc14.x86_64
Connecting an iso cd or changing network device type or other things
works ok. it seems only these two settings....
Gianluca
13 years
