Provided by: libguestfs0t64_1.52.0-5ubuntu3_amd64 
NAME
guestfs-release-notes - libguestfs Release Notes
RELEASE NOTES FOR LIBGUESTFS 1.30
These release notes only cover the differences from the previous stable/dev branch split (1.28.0). For
detailed changelogs, please see the git repository, or the ChangeLog file distributed in the tarball.
New features
New tools
virt-dib(1) is a secure and safe alternative to the OpenStack "diskimage-builder" tool. It is compatible
with diskimage-builder elements. (Pino Toscano)
virt-get-kernel(1) extracts the kernel and ramdisk from a disk image. Previously this functionality was
part of virt-builder(1), but the new tool is more featureful. (Pino Toscano)
New features in existing tools
virt-v2v(1) -i ova mode can now read a wider range of OVA files, and also unpacked files (directories).
virt-v2v now securely passes options to curl, so passwords, cookies and so on cannot be seen by users
with shell access on the same machine.
virt-v2v has a new --password-file option to allow you to securely pass in a password, and to avoid an
interactive prompt.
virt-v2v disables Windows autoreboot, making debugging conversion failures on Windows easier.
virt-v2v now comes with an extensive external test suite. See virt-v2v-test-harness(1).
virt-v2v allows virtio drivers to come from any location (Roman Kagan), and drivers can be read directly
from the virtio ISO.
virt-v2v supports conversion of Windows ≥ 8. Note this is experimental, and possibly broken. Use with
caution.
virt-v2v can now convert UEFI guests.
virt-p2v(1) adds a network configuration dialog.
virt-p2v now has "p2v.pre", "p2v.post" and "p2v.fail" triggers, allowing arbitrary scripts for preparing
the host for conversion and tidying up post-conversion.
virt-p2v now uses the more advanced metacity window manager (instead of matchbox).
virt-sysprep(1) will remove "/var/spool/mail/username" for non-root accounts (Hu Tao).
virt-customize(1), virt-builder(1) and virt-sysprep have the following new options:
--commands-from-file
allow long lists of commands to be read from a file instead of from the command line (Pino Toscano)
--copy
copy files inside the guest (Maros Zatko)
--copy-in
copy host files recursively into the guest (Pino Toscano)
--move
move files inside the guest (Maros Zatko)
--ssh-inject
inject SSH keys into a guest (Pino Toscano)
--sm-attach
--sm-credentials
--sm-register
--sm-remove
--sm-unregister
register and unregister a guest from subscription-manager (Pino Toscano)
--touch
touch a file in the guest (Pino Toscano)
--truncate
--truncate-recursive
truncate files (Maros Zatko)
Improvements to virt-customize firstboot support. In particular, Windows firstboot should work as well
as Linux (Roman Kagan).
virt-df(1) can now use PolicyKit, SASL and other authentication methods when getting the list of domains
from libvirt.
Improvements to guestfish bash completion (Pino Toscano).
Bash completion now completes short options as well as long options (Pino Toscano).
guestfish(1) now displays a command synopsis if the number of parameters given to a command is wrong (Hu
Tao).
virt-builder now supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux versions back to RHEL 3.
virt-builder supports SUSE guests using zypper (Cédric Bosdonnat).
Language bindings
The Java bindings now include validated Javadoc, and other improvements (Pino Toscano).
Multiple fixes and improvements to the PHP bindings (Pino Toscano).
Inspection
Inspection can now get icons from RHEL 7 and CentOS 7.
/etc/favicon.png is now allowed to be a symbolic link.
For RPM-based guests, inspection now returns RPM Epoch fields.
Debian packages now have separate Epoch and Version fields (Nikos Skalkotos).
OpenBSD detection added, FreeBSD and NetBSD added as separate "distros", and other BSD inspection
improvements and bug fixes (Nikos Skalkotos).
CoreOS detection added (Nikos Skalkotos).
The package manager in Fedora ≥ 22 is "dnf".
ReactOS guests can be inspected (Maros Zatko).
Add support for UEFI guests.
Inspection now works when kernel modules are gzip or xz compressed (Pino Toscano).
Inspection now recognizes ppc64 and ppc64le guests (Maros Zatko).
Inspection lists the installed applications on Archlinux guests (Nikos Skalkotos).
Architectures and platforms
PPC64 (POWER7) and PPC64LE (POWER8) architectures are now much better supported, and should work out of
the box.
For aarch64, we use AAVMF (an open source UEFI implementation based on OVMF) if available to run the
appliance.
For armv7, we now use the -M virt machine type by default.
There is better support for compiling on non-Linux platforms (Pino Toscano, Margaret Lewicka).
Libguestfs should now work on MIPS 32 bit little endian ("mipsel"). I have not been able to try 64 bit
or big endian.
Security
CVE-2014-8484
CVE-2014-8485
Libguestfs previously ran the strings(1) utility on untrusted files. Strings could parse BFD headers
in an unsafe way, leading to possible arbitrary code execution. Libguestfs now runs strings with a
flag to ensure it does not try to parse BFD headers. This could have led to exploitation of the
libguestfs appliance, but since libguestfs further constrains the appliance through virtualization,
SELinux and other techniques, it was unlikely to have caused any privilege escalation on the host.
XPath injection in virt-v2v
One possible XPath injection vulnerability was fixed in virt-v2v. This might have allowed a
malicious guest which was being converted by virt-v2v to construct an arbitrary XPath expression
which would have been evaluated on the host (by the libxml2 library linked to the virt-v2v binary).
It is not clear what the effects of this might be.
For further information, see upstream commit
https://github.com/libguestfs/libguestfs/commit/6c6ce85f94c36803fe2db35a98db436bff0c14b0
Denial of service problems when using "qemu-img info"
When using the American Fuzzy Lop fuzzer ("afl-fuzz") on the "qemu-img info" command, Richard W.M.
Jones found that certain files can cause the "qemu-img" program to use lots of memory and time (for
example 6GB of heap and 14 seconds of CPU time on a fast Intel processor), and in some cases to
crash. Since libguestfs may run "qemu-img info" on disk images to find out what they contain, this
transitively could cause libguestfs to hang or consume lots of memory.
Libguestfs was modified so that it uses resource limits to limit the space and time used by "qemu-img
info", to avoid this problem. If a malicious user tries to pass one of these disk images to
libguestfs, "qemu-img" will crash and the crash is reported back to libguestfs callers as an error
message.
API
New APIs
"guestfs_add_libvirt_dom"
This exposes a previously private API that allows you to pass a "virDomainPtr" object directly from
libvirt to libguestfs.
"guestfs_blockdev_setra"
Adjust readahead parameter for devices. See "blockdev --setra" command.
"guestfs_btrfs_balance"
"guestfs_btrfs_balance_cancel"
"guestfs_btrfs_balance_pause"
"guestfs_btrfs_balance_resume"
"guestfs_btrfs_balance_status"
Balance support for Btrfs filesystems (Hu Tao).
"guestfs_btrfs_filesystem_defragment"
Filesystem defragmentation support for Btrfs filesystems (Hu Tao).
"guestfs_btrfs_image"
Create an image of a Btrfs filesystem (Chen Hanxiao)
"guestfs_btrfs_qgroup_assign"
"guestfs_btrfs_qgroup_create"
"guestfs_btrfs_qgroup_destroy"
"guestfs_btrfs_qgroup_limit"
"guestfs_btrfs_qgroup_remove"
"guestfs_btrfs_qgroup_show"
"guestfs_btrfs_quota_enable"
"guestfs_btrfs_quota_rescan"
Quote support for Btrfs filesystems (Hu Tao).
"guestfs_btrfs_rescue_chunk_recover"
Scan and recover the chunk tree in Btrfs filesystems (Hu Tao).
"guestfs_btrfs_rescue_super_recover"
Restore superblocks in Btrfs filesystems (Hu Tao).
"guestfs_btrfs_replace"
Replace a device in a Btrfs filesystem (Cao Jin).
"guestfs_btrfs_scrub"
"guestfs_btrfs_scrub_cancel"
"guestfs_btrfs_scrub_resume"
"guestfs_btrfs_scrub_status"
Scrub a Btrfs filesystem (Hu Tao).
"guestfs_btrfs_subvolume_get_default"
Get the default subvolume of a Btrfs filesystem (Hu Tao).
"guestfs_btrfs_subvolume_show"
List detailed information about the subvolume of a Btrfs filesystem (Hu Tao).
"guestfs_btrfstune_enable_extended_inode_refs"
"guestfs_btrfstune_enable_skinny_metadata_extent_refs"
"guestfs_btrfstune_seeding"
Various tuning parameters for Btrfs filesystems (Chen Hanxiao).
"guestfs_c_pointer"
Return the C pointer to the underlying "guestfs_h *". This allows interworking of libguestfs
bindings with bindings from other libraries. For further information see
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1075164
"guestfs_copy_in"
"guestfs_copy_out"
Flexible APIs for recursively copying directories of files between the host and guest filesystem.
Previously these were available only as guestfish commands, but now any API users can call them (Pino
Toscano).
"guestfs_part_get_gpt_guid"
"guestfs_part_set_gpt_guid"
Get and set the GPT per-partition GUID.
"guestfs_part_get_mbr_part_type"
Get MBR partition type (Chen Hanxiao).
"guestfs_set_uuid_random"
Set the UUID of a filesystem to a randomly generated value; supported filesystems currently are
ext2/3/4, XFS, Btrfs, and swap partitions. (Chen Hanxiao).
Other API changes
"guestfs_disk_create" can now use VMDK files as backing files.
"guestfs_btrfs_subvolume_snapshot" takes extra optional parameters (all added by Hu Tao):
"ro"
for creating a read-only Btrfs snapshot
"qgroupid"
for adding the snapshot to a qgroup
"guestfs_btrfs_subvolume_create" can also take the optional "qgroupid" parameter (Hu Tao).
"guestfs_set_uuid" can set UUID of swap partitions, Btrfs (Hu Tao, Chen Hanxiao).
"guestfs_copy_device_to_file" and "guestfs_copy_file_to_file" have a new optional "append" parameter,
allowing you to append to the output file instead of truncating it.
"guestfs_mkfs" has a new optional "label" parameter to set the initial label of the new filesystem (Pino
Toscano).
"guestfs_set_label" and "guestfs_set_uuid" now set "ENOTSUP" as errno when there is no implemented
support for the filesystem of the specified mountable (Chen Hanxiao).
Environment variables now let you write "LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG=true", "LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG=0" and so on.
All "guestfs_sfdisk*" APIs have been deprecated. Because sfdisk(8) was rewritten, incompatibly,
upstream, we don't recommend using these APIs in future code. Use the "guestfs_part*" APIs as
replacements.
APIs such as "guestfs_download" do not truncate /dev/stdout or /dev/stderr when writing to them, meaning
that if you redirect stdout or stderr to a file, the file is no longer truncated.
Build changes
The daemon no longer uses its own separate copy of gnulib. Instead it shares a single copy with the
library.
OCaml .annot files are now created, so IDEs and editors like emacs and vi can browse OCaml types in the
source code.
Various fixes to allow different host/appliance architecture builds (Pino Toscano).
Automake is now used directly to build all the OCaml programs, instead of ad hoc Makefile rules. One
side effect of this is to enable warnings in all the C code used by OCaml programs.
"-fno-strict-overflow" is used throughout the build to avoid dubious GCC optimizations.
Multiple cleanups to support GCC 5.
OCaml OUnit2 is needed to run some OCaml tests.
Creating a statically linked libguestfs.a should work again.
The src/api-support subdirectory and its scripts are no longer used. Instead we store in the
generator/actions.ml when the API was added to libguestfs.
Internationalization
The translation service has changed from Transifex to Zanata.
Many more translations are available now, for both library and tools messages and documentation.
Internals
In all OCaml tools, there are now common "error", "warning", "info" functions, and common way to set and
get the --quiet, -x (trace) and -v (verbose) flags, and colour highlighting used consistently.
"COMPILE_REGEXP" macros are used to simplify PCRE constructors and destructors.
In the generator, "Pointer" arguments have finally been implemented.
Internal identifiers no longer use double and triple underscores (eg. "guestfs___program_name"). These
identifiers are invalid for C99 and C++ programs, although compilers would accept them.
The daemon no longer parses "guestfs_*" options from /proc/cmdline. Instead it only takes ordinary
command line options. The appliance init script turns /proc/cmdline into daemon command line options.
The tests can now run the daemon as a "captive process", allowing it to be run directly on the host. The
main advantage of this is we can run valgrind directly on the daemon during testing.
Bugs fixed
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1239053
virt-v2v error reporting when grub.conf cannot be parsed by Augeas
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1238053
v2v:Duplicate disk target set when convert guest with cdrom attached
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1237869
Virtio drivers are not installed for windows 2008 guests by virt-v2v
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1234351
virt-v2v Support for Fedora virtio-win drivers
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1232192
Virt-v2v gives an error on a blank disk: part_get_parttype: unknown signature, of the output: BYT;
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1229385
virt-p2v in kernel command line mode should power off the machine after conversion
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1229340
virt-p2v no GUI mode appends \n to the final command line parameter
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1229305
virt-sysprep at cleanup deletes /var/spool/at/.SEQ which results in failing at
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1226794
"Doing conversion……" still shows after cancel the conversion from virt-p2v client
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1215042
Memory leak in virNetSocketNewConnectUNIX
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1213324
virt-v2v: warning: unknown guest operating system: windows windows 6.3 when converting
win8,win8.1,win2012,win2012R2 to rhev
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1213247
virt tools should print the same format of version string
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1212808
RFE: virt-builder --touch
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1212807
virt-builder --selinux-relabel flag fails on cross-architecture builds
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1212680
RFE: virt-inspector xpath query should output a neat format of the query element
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1212152
virt-builder firstboot-command fails: File name too long
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1211996
virt-inspector gives incorrect arch (ppc64) for ppc64le guest
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1203817
RFE: virt-customize --move and --copy
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1201526
index-parser can't parse systemd mount files properly
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1196101
virt-builder --upload option doesn't work to a FAT partition
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1196100
virt-builder -x option on its own does not enable tracing
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1195204
`virt-builder` should create $HOME/.cache directory if it already doesn't exist
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1193237
Virt-builder fingerprint is required even when no check desired
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1189284
virt-resize should preserve GPT partition UUIDs, else EFI guests become unbootable
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1188866
Performance regression in virt-builder when uncompressing image
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1186800
virt-v2v should support gzip format ova as input
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1185561
virt-sparsify should ignore read-only LVs
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1182463
"mknod-b", "mknod-c", and "mkfifo" do not strip non-permissions bits from "mode"
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1176493
virt-v2v ignores sound device when convert xen guest to local kvm
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1175676
Typo error in 'help ping-daemon'
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1175196
"parse-environment" and "parse-environment-list" fail to parse "LIBGUESTFS_TRACE = 0"
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1175035
"is-blockdev"/"is-blockdev-opts" fail to detect "/dev/sda"
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1174280
RFE: Allow v2v conversion of Oracle Linux 5.8 VMware VM
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1174200
New virt-v2v failure: CURL: Error opening file: NSS: client certificate not found (nickname not
specified): Invalid argument
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1174123
Graphics password disappear after conversion of virt-v2v
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1174073
The listen address for vnc is changed after conversion by virt-v2v
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1171666
inspection thinks EFI partition is a separate operating system
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1171130
virt-v2v conversion of RHEL 3 guest fails with: All of your loopback devices are in use
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1170685
Conversion of RHEL 4 guest fails: rpm -ql 1:kernel-utils-2.4-23.el4: virt-v2v: error: libguestfs
error: command_lines:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1170073
virt-v2v picks debug kernels over non-debug kernels when versions are equal
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1169045
virt-sparsify: libguestfs error: qemu-img info: 'virtual-size' is not representable as a 64 bit
integer
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1169015
virt-resize --expand fails on ubuntu-14.04.img image (regression)
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1168144
warning: fstrim: fstrim: /sysroot/: FITRIM ioctl failed: Operation not supported (ignored) when
convert win2003 guest from xen server
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1167921
p2v: No Network Connection dialog
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1167774
virt-p2v fails with error:"nbd.c:nbd_receive_negotiate():L501: read failed"
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1167623
Remove "If reporting bugs, run virt-v2v with debugging enabled .." message when running virt-p2v
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1167601
"Conversion was successful" pop out even virt-p2v fails
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1167302
virt-v2v: warning: ova hard disk has no parent controller when convert from a ova file
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1166618
virt-resize should give out the detail warning info to let customers know what's going wrong
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1165975
File "/boot/grub2/device.map" showing is not right after converting a rhel7 guest from esx server
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1165785
mount-loop command fails: mount failed: Unknown error -1
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1165569
Disable "cancel conversion" button after virt-p2v conversion finished
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1165564
Provide Reboot/Shutdown button after virt-p2v
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1164853
Booting in qemu found no volume groups and failed checking the filesystems
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1164732
The description of 'help append' is not accurately, it add the kernel options to libguestfs appliance
not the guest kernel
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1164697
typo errors in man pages
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1164619
Inspect-get-icon failed on RHEL7 guest
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1162966
xfs should also give a warning out to let customer know the limitation
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1161575
Failed to import guest with "rtl8139" nic to openstack server after converted by v2v
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1159651
virt-sysprep firstboot script is not deleted if it reboot a RHEL 7 guest
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1159258
esx win2008 32 bit guest fail to load after conversion because the firmware isn't ACPI compatible
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1159016
libvirt backend does not set RBD password
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1158526
Use password file instead of process interaction
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1157679
virt-p2v-make-disk should add firmwares
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1156449
libguestfs FTBFS on f21 ppc64le
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1156301
virt-inspector support adding a remote disk, but in its man page -a URI / --add URI is missing
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1155121
Virt-v2v will fail when using relative path for -i ova
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1153844
Redundancy whitespace at the end of directory name when use <TAB> to complete the directory name in
guestfish with a xfs filesystem in guest
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1153589
virt-v2v will hang when converting esx guest before disk copy phase
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1152998
virt-v2v / qemu-img fails on ova image
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1151910
virt-ls should remove '/' in the output when specify the directory name as /etc/
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1151900
Should also add a field for directory files when run virt-ls with --csv option
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1151033
virt-v2v conversions from VMware vCenter server run slowly
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1146832
virt-v2v fail to convert guest with disk type volume
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1146007
Input/output error during conversion of esx guest.
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1135585
[RFE] virt-builder should support copying in a directory/list of files
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1089566
[abrt] livecd-tools: kickstart.py:276:apply:IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory:
'/run/media/jones/2tp001data/createlive/temp/imgcreate-_dX8Us/install_root/etc/rpm/macros.imgcreate'
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1079625
virt-sparsify fails if a btrfs filesystem contains readonly snapshots
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1075164
RFE: allow passing in a pre-opened libvirt connection from python
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/912499
Security context on image file gets reset
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/889082
[RFE] virt-v2v should check whether guest with same name exist on target first then transfer the disk
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/855059
RFE: virt-p2v: display more information about network devices such as topology, bonding, etc.
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/823758
p2v client should have largest number restrictions for CPU and Memory settings
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/709327
hivex cannot read registry hives from ReactOS
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/709326
virt-inspector cannot detect ReactOS
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/119673
installation via NFS doesn't seem to work
SEE ALSO
guestfs-examples(1), guestfs-faq(1), guestfs-performance(1), guestfs-recipes(1), guestfs-testing(1),
guestfs(3), guestfish(1), http://libguestfs.org/
AUTHOR
Richard W.M. Jones
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2009-2023 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.
libguestfs-1.52.0 2024-01-05 guestfs-release-notes-1.30(1)