[fedora-virt] ANNOUNCE: Augeas support added to libguestfs

Ján ONDREJ (SAL) ondrejj at salstar.sk
Thu Apr 9 17:57:59 UTC 2009


Looks nice.

Is it possible to implment something like qemu-img convert, which can dump
whole filesystem to stdout and restore from it into liguestfs?

I am developing an application, which can make offline backups for virtual
hosts. It now can use:
  - dd to copy whole disk from disk to disk
  - rsync partition content
Now tryinng to implement:
  - rsync disk devices, --copy-devices patch to rsync required BZ#494313
  - copy image content only (qemu-img convert -c to stdout, but this is not
    possible, so I have no solution now)

My project can copy offline backups, which are snapshots of LVM volumes.
Before snapshot "sync" is sent to virtual machine to save whole content.
Planning to implment also something like suspend as before live migration
to save an image fully consistent (disk image is an snapshot, but there is
also an vm image, where caches and transactions are stored).
This should be based on ideas from here:
  http://lists.xensource.com/archives/html/xen-devel/2006-12/msg00685.html

Is something similar possible for KVM too? This is required for this
operation:
  - pause virtual machine
  - create LVM snapshot
  - save virtual machine, but leave it running
  - unpause virtual machine
  - copy LVM snapshot
  - drop LVM snapshot

Can I save KVM machine without stopping it? Everythin between pause-unpause
should run in a few seconds.

		SAL

On Thu, Apr 09, 2009 at 01:34:29PM +0100, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> Augeas, meet libguestfs.
> 
> Libguestfs is a library I'm writing which lets you examine and modify
> virtual machine disk images, so you can perform sysadmin tasks on
> virtual machines without needing to bring them up or log into them.
> 
> As of a few minutes ago, libguestfs now supports Augeas, so you can
> use Augeas to edit configuration files within the virtual machine.
> You will need the git version of libguestfs to get this at the moment,
> or it will appear in version 0.7 when I release it.
> 
>   http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/libguestfs/
>   http://git.et.redhat.com/?p=libguestfs.git;a=summary
> 
> Here's an example session using the shell tool, editing the /etc/hosts
> file from a RHEL 5.2 virtual machine:
> 
>   $ guestfish -a RHEL52PV32.img -m /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 
>   
>   Welcome to guestfish, the libguestfs filesystem interactive shell for
>   editing virtual machine filesystems.
>   
>   Type: 'help' for help with commands
>         'quit' to quit the shell
>   
>   ><fs> aug-init / 0
>   ><fs> aug-match /augeas/*
>   /augeas/root
>   /augeas/save
>   /augeas/files
>   ><fs> aug-match /files//error
>   ><fs> aug-match /augeas//error
>   ><fs> aug-match /augeas/root/*
>   ><fs> aug-match /files/etc/*
>   /files/etc/ldap.conf
>   /files/etc/aliases
>   /files/etc/yum.repos.d
>   /files/etc/yum.conf
>   /files/etc/sysconfig
>   /files/etc/default
>   /files/etc/inittab
>   /files/etc/sysctl.conf
>   /files/etc/hosts
>   /files/etc/pam.d
>   /files/etc/logrotate.d
>   /files/etc/samba
>   /files/etc/xinetd.conf
>   /files/etc/xinetd.d
>   /files/etc/fstab
>   /files/etc/ssh
>   /files/etc/exports
>   ><fs> aug-match /files/etc/hosts/*
>   /files/etc/hosts/comment[1]
>   /files/etc/hosts/comment[2]
>   /files/etc/hosts/1
>   /files/etc/hosts/2
>   ><fs> cat /etc/hosts                   
>   # Do not remove the following line, or various programs
>   # that require network functionality will fail.
>   127.0.0.1      	       localhost.localdomain localhost
>   ::1		               localhost6.localdomain6 localhost6
>   
>   ><fs> aug-get /files/etc/hosts/comment[1]  
>   Do not remove the following line, or various programs
>   ><fs> help aug-insert
>   aug-insert - insert a sibling Augeas node
>        aug-insert <path> <label> <before>
>   
>       Create a new sibling "label" for "path", inserting it into the tree
>       before or after "path" (depending on the boolean flag "before").
>   
>       "path" must match exactly one existing node in the tree, and "label"
>       must be a label, ie. not contain "/", "*" or end with a bracketed index
>       "[N]".
>   
>   ><fs> aug-insert /files/etc/hosts/comment[2] comment false
>   ><fs> aug-match /files/etc/hosts/*
>   /files/etc/hosts/comment[1]
>   /files/etc/hosts/comment[2]
>   /files/etc/hosts/comment[3]
>   /files/etc/hosts/1
>   /files/etc/hosts/2
>   ><fs> aug-set /files/etc/hosts/comment[3] HELLO
>   ><fs> aug-save
>   ><fs> cat /etc/hosts 
>   # Do not remove the following line, or various programs
>   # that require network functionality will fail.
>   # HELLO
>   127.0.0.1		localhost.localdomain localhost
>   ::1			localhost6.localdomain6 localhost6
>   
>   ><fs> help
>       Command              Description
>   help                 display a list of commands or help on a command
>   quit                 quit guestfish
>   alloc                allocate an image
>   add-cdrom            add a CD-ROM disk image to examine
>   add-drive            add an image to examine or modify
>   aug-close            close the current Augeas handle
>   aug-defnode          define an Augeas node
>   aug-defvar           define an Augeas variable
>   aug-get              look up the value of an Augeas path
>   aug-init             create a new Augeas handle
>   aug-insert           insert a sibling Augeas node
>   aug-load             load files into the tree
>   aug-match            return Augeas nodes which match path
>   aug-mv               move Augeas node
>   aug-rm               remove an Augeas path
>   aug-save             write all pending Augeas changes to disk
>   aug-set              set Augeas path to value
>   cat                  list the contents of a file
>   config               add qemu parameters
>   get-autosync         get autosync mode
>   get-path             get the search path
>   get-verbose          get verbose mode
>   kill-subprocess      kill the qemu subprocess
>   launch               launch the qemu subprocess
>   list-devices         list the block devices
>   list-partitions      list the partitions
>   ll                   list the files in a directory (long format)
>   ls                   list the files in a directory
>   lvs                  list the LVM logical volumes (LVs)
>   lvs-full             list the LVM logical volumes (LVs)
>   mount                mount a guest disk at a position in the filesystem
>   pvs                  list the LVM physical volumes (PVs)
>   pvs-full             list the LVM physical volumes (PVs)
>   read-lines           read file as lines
>   set-autosync         set autosync mode
>   set-path             set the search path
>   set-verbose          set verbose mode
>   sync                 sync disks, writes are flushed through to the disk image
>   touch                update file timestamps or create a new file
>   vgs                  list the LVM volume groups (VGs)
>   vgs-full             list the LVM volume groups (VGs)
>       Use -h <cmd> / help <cmd> to show detailed help for a command.
> 
> Rich.
> 
> -- 
> Richard Jones, Emerging Technologies, Red Hat  http://et.redhat.com/~rjones
> virt-top is 'top' for virtual machines.  Tiny program with many
> powerful monitoring features, net stats, disk stats, logging, etc.
> http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/virt-top
> 
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