libguestfs is a C

library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

and a set of tools for accessing and modifying virtual disk images used in platform virtualization. The tools can be used for viewing and editing virtual machines (VMs) managed by

libvirt libvirt is an open-source API, daemon and management tool for managing platform virtualization. It can be used to manage KVM, Xen, VMware ESXi, QEMU and other virtualization technologies. These APIs are widely used in the orchestration layer o ...

and files inside VMs, scripting changes to VMs, creating VMs, and much else besides. It was created because of security issues, when virtual disk images are mounted directly on the host system. libguestfs can access nearly any type of file system including: all known types of Linux filesystem ( ext2/ 3/ 4,

XFS XFS is a high-performance 64-bit journaling file system created by Silicon Graphics, Inc (SGI) in 1993. It was the default file system in SGI's IRIX operating system starting with its version 5.3. XFS was ported to the Linux kernel in 2001; as ...

, btrfs, etc.), any Windows filesystem (

VFAT File Allocation Table (FAT) is a file system developed for personal computers. Originally developed in 1977 for use on floppy disks, it was adapted for use on hard disks and other devices. It is often supported for compatibility reasons by c ...

and NTFS), any Mac OS X and BSD filesystems,

LVM2 In Linux, Logical Volume Manager (LVM) is a device mapper framework that provides logical volume management for the Linux kernel. Most modern Linux distributions are LVM-aware to the point of being able to have their root file systems on a log ...

volume management, MBR and GPT disk partitions, raw disks, qcow2, VirtualBox VDI, VMWare

VMDK VMDK (short for Virtual Machine Disk) is a file format that describes containers for virtual hard disk drives to be used in virtual machines like VMware Workstation or VirtualBox. Initially developed by VMware for its proprietary virtual applian ...

, Hyper-V VHD/VHDX, on files, local devices, CD and DVD ISOs, SD cards, or remotely over FTP, HTTP,

SSH The Secure Shell Protocol (SSH) is a cryptographic network protocol for operating network services securely over an unsecured network. Its most notable applications are remote login and command-line execution. SSH applications are based on a ...

, iSCSI, NBD, GlusterFS, Ceph, Sheepdog, and much more. libguestfs does not require root permissions. The functionality is available through a shell called . There is a rescue shell called for fixing unbootable virtual machines. Multiple tools are available modeled after ordinary

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...

commands, such as and . libguestfs is also an

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standa ...

that can be linked with C and C++ management programs and has bindings for

Perl Perl is a family of two high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it also referred to its redesigned "sister language", Perl 6, before the latter's name was offici ...

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (pro ...

Ruby A ruby is a pinkish red to blood-red colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum ( aluminium oxide). Ruby is one of the most popular traditional jewelry gems and is very durable. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sa ...

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

OCaml OCaml ( , formerly Objective Caml) is a general-purpose programming language, general-purpose, multi-paradigm programming language which extends the Caml dialect of ML (programming language), ML with object-oriented programming, object-oriented ...

PHP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group ...

, Haskell, Erlang, Lua,

Golang Go is a statically typed, compiled programming language designed at Google by Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike, and Ken Thompson. It is syntactically similar to C, but with memory safety, garbage collection, structural typing, and CSP-style con ...

and C#. It can be used from shell scripts or in the command line. Using the

FUSE Fuse or FUSE may refer to: Devices * Fuse (electrical), a device used in electrical systems to protect against excessive current ** Fuse (automotive), a class of fuses for vehicles * Fuse (hydraulic), a device used in hydraulic systems to protect ...

module guest filesystems can be mounted on the host with the command. libguestfs is implemented using the Kernel-based Virtual Machine for the

Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU ope ...

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://libguestfs.org/ Application programming interfaces Free virtualization software Virtual machines Virtualization software for Linux

See also

References

External links