Ubuntu Manpage: guestfs-release-notes - libguestfs Release Notes

Provided by: libguestfs0t64_1.52.0-5ubuntu3_amd64

NAME

       guestfs-release-notes - libguestfs Release Notes

RELEASE NOTES FOR LIBGUESTFS 1.20

These release notes only cover the differences from the previous stable/dev branch split (1.18.0). For
detailed changelogs, please see the git repository, or the ChangeLog file distributed in the tarball.

New features
libvirt and sVirt (SELinux confinement)

You can optionally use libvirt to launch and manage the backend appliance by:

• setting "LIBGUESTFS_ATTACH_METHOD=libvirt[:URI]"

• using "./configure --with-default-attach-method=libvirt[:URI]"

• or calling the API method "guestfs_set_attach_method"

SVirt (SELinux confinement) is used to secure the libguestfs appliance, if the libvirt backend is
selected.

virtio-scsi, larger number of drives, hotplugging

Virtio-scsi is now used by default, if it is available. This greatly increases the number of drives that
can be added to a single libguestfs handle (up to 255).

You can now hotplug drives (add and remove drives after launch).

Libguestfs can now handle > 25 disks, in all APIs, tools and tests.

You can label drives when adding them, then refer to them by label (/dev/disk/guestfs/LABEL) instead of
having to use device names (/dev/sda).

new library features

POSIX Access Control Lists (ACLs) and Linux filesystem capabilities can now be read and written through
the API.

Windows Dynamic Disks are now supported. The metadata can only be read (volumes cannot be modified or
created). However the data/filesystems in the volumes themselves can be mounted, read and written
(Matthew Booth).

Hivex (Windows Registry editing) is now directly supported through the API, making reading or editing the
Windows Registry much more efficient.

Several libguestfs APIs were reimplemented so they no longer have any limits on output. The
reimplemented APIs are: "guestfs_cat", "guestfs_find", "guestfs_read_file", "guestfs_read_lines",
"guestfs_write", "guestfs_write_append", "guestfs_lstatlist", "guestfs_lxattrlist",
"guestfs_readlinklist", "guestfs_ls".

virt tools

"guestfish touch 'win:c:\new_file'" now works as expected.

"guestfish" has a new --network option, which enables the user network in libguestfs.

You can set "GUESTFISH_PS1" to use fancy prompts in "guestfish".

"rsync", "ssh", "less" and "lrzip" commands are now available in virt-rescue. In addition, "rsync" can
be used through the API for doing incremental copies.

"virt-sparsify" uses qcow2 v3 for increased efficiency.

"virt-sysprep" enhancements:

• generate new UUIDs for PVs and VGs

• remove the local machine ID (Wanlong Gao)

• remove ABRT data (Wanlong Gao)

• remove puppet keys and log files (Wanlong Gao)

• remove process accounting files (Wanlong Gao)

• new --firstboot parameter allowing firstboot scripts for customizing guests

• remove HOSTNAME field from "ifcfg-eth*" files (Wanlong Gao)

• miscellaneous improvements for SuSE (Olaf Hering)

• remove man pages cache (Wanlong Gao)

• remove crash data generated by kexec-tools (Wanlong Gao)

"virt-make-fs" can now create virtual floppy disks (VFDs).

"guestmount" has a --pid-file option, which can be used to avoid a race condition between unmounting the
filesystem and using the underlying disk image.

language bindings

Full-featured Lua bindings have been added in this release (thanks to Jerome Vuarand for many
suggestions).

In Ruby, optional arguments hash is optional.

In Python, optional arguments now don't use special "sentinel" values, so any integer can be passed as an
optional argument.

Erlang bindings now come with examples and tests.

Erlang bindings now handle 64 bit integer parameters correctly.

The automated 'bindtests' now test for 64 bit cleanliness in parameter passing. Several bugs in the
bindings were found and fixed as a result.

Better handling of blocking and non-blocking functions should make libguestfs calls more efficient.

inspection

Windows guests with unlimited-sized Registries are now supported. By adding the hivex API to the
libguestfs API, it is much more efficient and easier to inspect and modify the Windows Registry in
guests.

Better support for SuSE guests (Olaf Hering).

Return the architecture of installed applications (John Eckersberg).

Windows 8 is now supported.

Fedora 18 is now supported.

Inspection of ISOs/CDs/DVDs can now use the libosinfo database.

ports

Libguestfs without the appliance can be compiled on Mac OS X (Masami HIRATA).

RHEL 5 is now explicitly supported through the 'oldlinux' branch in upstream git.

PowerPC 64 bit is now supported. Also libguestfs has been examined for endianness bugs and these have
been fixed.

daemon

A man page for the daemon (guestfsd(8)) is included.

Security
guestfish history file

The $HOME/.guestfish history file is now created with 0600 permissions (instead of 0644 before) so it is
no longer world readable.

CVE-2012-2690

Old versions of both "virt-edit" and the "guestfish" "edit" command created a new file containing the
changes but did not set the permissions, etc of the new file to match the old one. The result of this
was that if you edited a security sensitive file such as /etc/shadow then it would be left world-readable
after the edit.

This issue was assigned CVE-2012-2690, and is fixed in libguestfs ≥ 1.16.

For further information, see https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=788642

New APIs
acl-delete-def-file
acl-get-file
acl-set-file
canonical-device-name
cap-get-file
cap-set-file
create-flags
device-index
disk-has-backing-file
disk-format
disk-virtual-size
filesystem-available
fill-dir
fstrim
get-cachedir
get-libvirt-requested-credentials
get-libvirt-requested-credential-prompt
get-libvirt-requested-credential-challenge
get-libvirt-requested-credential-defresult
get-tmpdir
hivex-close
hivex-commit
hivex-node-add-child
hivex-node-children
hivex-node-delete-child
hivex-node-get-child
hivex-node-get-value
hivex-node-name
hivex-node-parent
hivex-node-set-value
hivex-node-values
hivex-open
hivex-root
hivex-value-key
hivex-value-type
hivex-value-utf8
hivex-value-value
inspect-list-applications2 (John Eckersberg)
list-ldm-volumes
list-ldm-partitions
ldmtool-create-all
ldmtool-diskgroup-disks
ldmtool-diskgroup-name
ldmtool-diskgroup-volumes
ldmtool-remove-all
ldmtool-scan
ldmtool-scan-devices
ldmtool-volume-hint
ldmtool-volume-partitions
ldmtool-volume-type
ls0
max-disks
mke2fs (Wanlong Gao)
mklost-and-found
mkswap [added label and uuid optional arguments]
mktemp (Wanlong Gao)
nr-devices
parse-environment
parse-environment-list
rm-f
rsync
rsync-in
rsync-out
set-cachedir
set-libvirt-supported-credentials
set-libvirt-requested-credential
set-tmpdir
shutdown [backported to 1.16 and 1.18]
tar-in [added compress flag]
tar-out [added compress, numericowner, excludes flags]
umount [added force and lazy optional arguments]
utsname
xfs-admin (Wanlong Gao)
xfs-growfs (Wanlong Gao)
xfs-info (Wanlong Gao)
xfs-repair (Wanlong Gao)

In the C API only:

guestfs_push_error_handler
guestfs_pop_error_handler

Internals
qemu ≥ 1.1 is required (≥ 1.2 preferred).

febootstrap ≥ 3.20 is required.

libvirt is optional, but if you want to use the new libvirt backend for launching the appliance then
libvirt ≥ 0.10.2 would be required.

Coverity has been run over the complete codebase, and many issues fixed (thanks Ondrej Vasik, Kamil
Dudka).

Functions which previously had no optargs can now be converted to ones with optargs, making extending the
API much more flexible. Source and binary backwards compatibility is preserved for users of the API.

The way that libguestfs APIs and structures are represented in the generator has changed to use an OCaml
struct instead of a tuple. This makes generator descriptions more flexible and easier to understand.
For details see commits 39d1a7db and eb185eef.

Separation of the library code into more files:

• Launch backends are now located in separate files eg. src/launch-appliance.c, "src/launch-libvirt.c".

• Generated action code is now split over several src/action*.c files, for faster compilation.

• The huge src/guestfs.c file is now split into smaller logical units.

POD (documentation) is now generated using a rewritten Perl program instead of pod2* + shell scripts.

Man pages now contain stable dates (Hilko Bengen).

Skipped tests now exit with code 77, so they appear as "SKIP:" in "make check" output.

The parallel mount-local test has been rewritten in C (RHBZ#838081).

Ruby 1.8.5 is now supported (though Ruby ≥ 1.9 is preferred).

Perl bindings can be disabled via "./configure --disable-perl" (Wulf C. Krueger). Note that Perl is
still required in order to build libguestfs.

Java bindings are now enabled/disabled using "./configure --with-java" or "./configure --without-java"
(Wulf C. Krueger).

New configure options "./configure --enable-code-profiling" and "./configure --enable-code-coverage".

Multiple fixes to use of 64 bit integers in language bindings.

The appliance backend now uses sgabios instead of vgabios (Dan Berrange).

The "./run" script now sets enough environment variables that you can run OCaml, Python, Ruby, Java, GJS,
Erlang, Lua programs.

"./run --test" flag for running tests with minimal output. It also prints the time taken to run each
test.

The "./run" script now builds up paths cumulatively, meaning that you can use "./run" twice, or use the
libguestfs and libvirt "./run" scripts together.

You can extract a list of external commands required by the daemon, making building the appliance on
certain distros easier (Olaf Hering).

The "virt-rescue" command is now tested during "make check".

The generator now removes unused generated files. This helps when going back and forth with git rebase,
git bisect, etc.

Tests now run in a separate toplevel "tmp/" directory in the source. This allows the directory to be
labelled for SELinux (sVirt), and also makes it easier to clean up.

"make syntax-check" now works to a greater extent, and many problems in the main code that were found by
syntax-check have been fixed (thanks Jim Meyering).

Emacs mode (-*- foo -*-) has been added to generated files.

Progress bar output is now sent to /dev/tty so it doesn't end up in the regular output of the program.
virt-resize and virt-sparsify now suppress progress bars if stdout is not a tty.

There is now a "./configure --without-libvirt" option. This is useful for testing that the code still
compiles without libvirt.

There is now an internal mini-library for running commands. This allows us to redirect errors from
external commands into events.

Code for handling temporary directories and the appliance cache was completely overhauled.

Code for temporarily ignoring/disabling errors now looks like this:

guestfs_push_error_handler (g, NULL, NULL);
guestfs_mkdir (g, "/foo"); /* We don't care if this fails. */
guestfs_pop_error_handler (g);

The "tests/extra" directory has gone. The "extra tests" are now split into separately runnable targets,
such as "make check-valgrind". Use "make help" to get a summary of the targets.

The "lpj" option is passed to the appliance kernel when using TCG. This should improve clock stability
(thanks Marcelo Tosatti, Olaf Hering).

Bugs fixed
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/882417
libguestfs tools fail with odd error messages if TMPDIR is not an absolute path

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/882299
Windows 8 guest disks can't be mounted: "The NTFS partition is in an unsafe state. Please resume and
shutdown Windows fully (no hibernation or fast restarting), or mount the volume read-only with the
'ro' mount option."

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/881953
libguestfs: migration to /etc/hostname, /etc/vconsole.conf, /etc/locale.conf

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/880801
virt-df with two -a options displays incorrect disk image name

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/879416
libguestfs-test-tool pauses when you use --help option

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/876579
mke2fs API does not apply block device naming translation to journaldevice optarg

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/860235
SELinux policy ought to allow qemu to write to unconfined_u:object_r:user_tmp_t:s0

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/859949
RFE: inspect-list-applications does not return the architecture of RPM packages

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/859885
inspect-list-applications does not list all installed RPM packages with same name and different
versions

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/859876
guestfish printed paths are not canonicalized

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/859875
Progress bar output should go to tty(?) stderr(?)

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/858696
virt-sysprep reports Guestfs.Error("read_lines: fopen: /etc/sysconfig/network: No such file or
directory") on some Fedora guests

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/858128
libguestfs fail to list devices added by add-drive-ro-with-if twice

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/858126
virt-inspector fail to work with some windows guests

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/853762
virt-sparsify should use a more robust method to detect the input format

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/853393
libvirt doesn't label console, serial sockets

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/853159
virt-rescue in Fedora 18 is completely broken

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/852394
libguestfs inspection limits registries to 100 MiB

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/852194
virt-sparsify --compress fails if output is raw format

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/847881
RFE: allow extra arguments (like --exclude) to tar-out

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/847880
tar-out should allow (or force) --numeric-owner

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/845522
guestfish "copy-out / localdir" command fails with "No such file or directory"

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/845488
Long filenames on NTFS cause tar-out, copy-out etc to fail with error "Cannot open: File name too
long"

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/842307
RFE: Need help designing and implementing selinux policy for libguestfs/sVirt

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/840572
virt-make-fs / tar-in should support vfat properly

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/840115
guestfish touch problem - case_sensitive_path API expects the file to exist

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/836710
Data loss when writing to qcow2-format disk files

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/834712
lvresize, lvresize-free fail unnecessarily if you don't change the size of the LV: "New size (nn
extents) matches existing size (nn extents)"

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/824716
compress-device-out didn't support bzip2

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/824043
guestfish unrecognized mount option gives confusing error message

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/823887
Filenames containing Chinese characters can't be created on vfat filesystems

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/823885
virt-make-fs cannot create vfat filesystem containing filesystems with Chinese characters

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/823883
virt-make-fs -t fat fails with an obscure error message

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/823821
Inspection fails when /etc/HOSTNAME is empty

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/801117
libguestfs cannot get icon for Windows 8

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/798979
Ubuntu install CDs from oneiric onwards are not recognized: "multi-boot operating systems are not
supported"

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/782167
libguestfs doesn't recognize Windows Dynamic disks in some configurations, eg. spanned

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/713678
Not all febootstrap messages are redirected to log callbacks

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/627675
libguestfs inspector code cannot handle /dev/disk/by-id/* paths

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/602997
part-get-bootable gives wrong result with an unordered part layout

AUTHOR

       Richard W.M. Jones

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       Copyright (C) 2009-2023 Red Hat Inc.

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       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.

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