[Libguestfs] Notes on libguestfs with Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise)

[Richard W.M. Jones]

Ubuntu are now supplying a libguestfs package (or to be more accurate,
they are just copying the Debian package) but it doesn't work out of the box.

There is a bug in apt which we worked around in febootstrap 3.14, but
the supplied version of febootstap is only 3.12.  Hence you will get
errors like this during installation:

  febootstrap: aptitude: error: no file was downloaded corresponding to package <some package name>

and you'll get the same error if you try to build from source.

The solution is to build febootstrap 3.14:

  cd /tmp
  sudo apt-get build-dep febootstrap
  sudo apt-get install devscripts
  apt-get source febootstrap
  wget http://people.redhat.com/~rjones/febootstrap/files/febootstrap-3.14.tar.gz
  tar zxf febootstrap-3.14.tar.gz
  cd febootstrap-3.14
  rm -rf debian
  cp -a ../febootstrap-3.12/debian .
  vi debian/changelog
  # change the first line: 3.12 -> 3.14
  debuild -i -uc -us -b

That will create an febootstrap 3.14 .deb file in /tmp which you can
install:

  sudo dpkg -i ../febootstrap_3.14-1_amd64.deb

Then you can go ahead and use the libguestfs package:

  sudo update-guestfs-appliance

or compile libguestfs from source.

There is another problem which you may hit, if you add a completely
blank disk to libguestfs (this also affects libguestfs-test-tool):

  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/931371
  https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=42778

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones
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