guestfs-release-notes-1.20(1)

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

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) 2009-2025 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.