guestfs-building - How to build libguestfs from source
This manual page describes how to build libguestfs from source.
The main steps are:
- •
- Install the requirements.
- •
- Build, either from the git repository or from a
tarball.
- •
- Run the tests.
- •
- Run the tools from the source directory, or install.
On Fedora, use
dnf(8) to install all the requirements:
dnf builddep libguestfs
dnf install autoconf automake libtool gettext-devel
On systems still using
yum(8), do:
yum-builddep libguestfs
yum install autoconf automake libtool gettext-devel
Use APT to install all the requirements:
apt-get build-dep libguestfs
apt-get install autoconf automake libtool-bin gettext
If that command doesn't work, take a look at the Debian source package
http://packages.debian.org/source/libguestfs, at the list of
"build-depends" and "build-depends-indep", and install
everything listed there.
- appliance/packagelist.in
- Install as many package names found in this file as
possible. (It is not strictly required to install all of them).
Note: If you build libguestfs followed by installing appliance
packages, the build will not pick them up automatically, even if you do
"make clean". You have to do this command to clean the
old supermin appliance and force a new one to be prepared:
make -C appliance clean-supermin-appliance
- qemu ≥ 1.3.0
-
Required.
- qemu-img ≥ 1.3.0
-
Required.
- kernel ≥ 2.6.34
-
Required. The following features must be enabled:
"virtio-pci", "virtio-serial",
"virtio-block", "virtio-net".
- supermin ≥ 5.1.18
-
Required. For alternatives, see "USING A
PREBUILT BINARY APPLIANCE" below.
- glibc
-
Required. We use the custom printf formatters
extension of glibc (see "DAEMON CUSTOM PRINTF FORMATTERS" in
guestfs-hacking(1)).
- XDR (tirpc, glibc or other)
-
Required. We use the XDR implementation from
"<rpc/xdr.h>", which may come from glibc, tirpc or another
library.
The "rpcgen" tool is optional, except if you want to compile from
git and/or patch libguestfs with new APIs.
- Gcc or Clang
-
Required. We use
"__attribute__((cleanup))" which is a GCC extension also
supported by Clang.
- Perl
-
Required. Various build steps and tests are written
in Perl. Perl is not needed at runtime except if you need to run a small
number of virt tools which are still written in Perl.
- Perl "Pod::Man"
- Perl "Pod::Simple"
-
Required. Part of Perl core.
- OCaml ≥ 4.04
- OCaml findlib
-
Required.
- autoconf
- automake
- gettext
-
Required if compiling from git. Optional if
compiling from tarball.
- cpio
-
Required.
- gperf
-
Required.
- realpath
-
Required.
- flex
- bison
-
Required.
- Perl-compatible Regular Expressions (PCRE2) library
-
Required.
- xorriso, genisoimage or mkisofs
- One of these is Required.
- libxml2
-
Required.
- ncurses
-
Required.
- augeas ≥ 1.2.0
-
Required.
- xz
-
Required.
- zstd
-
Required.
- Jansson ≥ 2.7
-
Required.
- po4a
-
Required if compiling from git. Optional if
compiling from tarball.
- hivex ≥ 1.2.7
- ocaml-hivex
-
Required. ocaml-hivex is the OCaml binding for
hivex, which is required when building the daemon.
- libmagic
-
Required. This is the library used by the
file(1) command.
- libvirt ≥ 0.10.2
- Optional. Always use the latest possible version of
libvirt.
- xmllint
- Optional. Used only for tests.
- libconfig
- Optional. Used to parse libguestfs’s own config
files, eg. /etc/libguestfs-tools.conf.
- libselinux
- Optional. Used by the libvirt backend to securely confine
the appliance (sVirt).
- systemtap
- Optional. For userspace probes.
- readline
- Optional. For nicer command line editing in
guestfish(1).
- acl
- Optional. Library and programs for handling POSIX
ACLs.
- libcap
- Optional. Library and programs for handling Linux
capabilities.
- libldm
- Optional. Library and ldmtool(1) for handling
Windows Dynamic Disks.
- sd-journal
- Optional. Library for accessing systemd journals.
- gdisk
- Optional. GPT disk support.
- netpbm
- Optional. Render icons from guests.
- icoutils
- Optional. Render icons from Windows guests.
- librpm
- Optional. To parse the list of applications from RPM-based
guests.
- Perl "Expect"
- Optional. Perl module used to test
virt-rescue(1).
- FUSE
- Optional. fusermount(1), libfuse and kernel module
are all needed if you want guestmount(1) and/or mount-local
support.
- static glibc
- Optional. Used only for testing.
- qemu-nbd
- nbdkit ≥ 1.12
- Optional. qemu-nbd is used for testing.
- curl
- Optional. Used by virt-builder for downloads.
- GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG, gpg) v1 or v2
- Optional. Used by virt-builder for checking digital
signatures.
- liblzma
- Optional. If available, virt-builder will use this library
for fast, parallel uncompression of templates.
- python-evtx
- Optional. Used by virt-log(1) to parse Windows Event
Log files.
- OCaml gettext
- Optional. For localizing OCaml virt tools.
- ocaml-ounit ≥ 2.0.0
- Optional. For testing the common OCaml modules.
- Perl "Module::Build" ≥ 0.19
- Perl "Test::More"
- Optional. Used to build and test the Perl bindings.
- Python ≥ 3.6
- Optional. Used to build the Python bindings.
Python 2 support was removed in libguestfs 1.42.1.
- Python "unittest"
- Optional. Used to run the Python testsuite.
- Ruby
- rake
- rubygem-minitest
- rubygem-rdoc
- Optional. Used to build the Ruby bindings.
- Java ≥ 1.6
- Optional. Java, JNI and jpackage-utils are needed for
building Java bindings.
- GHC
- Optional. Used to build the Haskell bindings.
- PHP
- phpize
- Optional. Used to build the PHP bindings.
- glib2
- gobject-introspection
- gjs
- Optional. Used to build and test the GObject bindings.
- vala
- Optional. Used to build the Vala bindings.
- LUA
- Optional. Used to build the LUA bindings.
- Erlang ≥ 23
- ei
- Optional. Used to build the Erlang bindings. Note that
Erlang ≤ 22 will not work unless you use libguestfs ≤
1.42.
- golang ≥ 1.1.1
- Optional. Used to build the Go bindings.
- valgrind
- Optional. For testing memory problems.
- libvirt-python
- Optional. For testing Python libvirt/libguestfs
interactions.
- Perl "libintl"
- Optional.
- bash-completion
- Optional. For tab-completion of commands in bash.
- libtsk
- Optional. Library for filesystem forensics analysis.
- yara ≥ 4.0.0
- Optional. Tool for categorizing files based on their
content.
You will need to install additional dependencies "autoconf",
"automake", "gettext", OCaml findlib and po4a when
building from git.
git clone https://github.com/libguestfs/libguestfs
cd libguestfs
git submodule update --init
autoreconf -i
./configure CFLAGS=-fPIC
make
Tarballs are downloaded from
http://download.libguestfs.org/. Stable tarballs
are signed with the GnuPG key for "
[email protected]", see
https://pgp.mit.edu/pks/lookup?op=vindex&search=0x91738F73E1B768A0. The
fingerprint is "F777 4FB1 AD07 4A7E 8C87 67EA 9173 8F73 E1B7 68A0".
Download and unpack the tarball.
cd libguestfs-1.xx.yy
./configure
make
DO NOT run the tests as root! Libguestfs can be built and tested as
non-root. Running the tests as root could even be dangerous, don't do it.
To sanity check that the build worked, do:
make quickcheck
To run the basic tests, do:
make check
There are many more tests you can run. See
guestfs-hacking(1) for
details.
DO NOT use "make install"! You'll end up with
conflicting versions of libguestfs installed, and this causes constant
headaches for users. See the next section for how to use the
./run
script instead.
Distro packagers can use:
make INSTALLDIRS=vendor DESTDIR=[temp-build-dir] install
You can run
guestfish(1),
guestmount(1) and the virt tools without
needing to install them by using the
./run script in the top directory.
This script works by setting several environment variables.
例:
./run guestfish [usual guestfish args ...]
./run virt-inspector [usual virt-inspector args ...]
The
./run script adds every libguestfs binary to the $PATH, so the above
examples run guestfish and virt-inspector from the build directory (not the
globally installed guestfish if there is one).
You can use the script from any directory. If you wanted to run your own
libguestfs-using program, then the following command will also work:
/path/to/libguestfs/run ./my_program [...]
You can also run the C programs under valgrind like this:
./run valgrind [valgrind opts...] virt-cat [virt-cat opts...]
or under gdb:
./run gdb --args virt-cat [virt-cat opts...]
This also works with sudo (eg. if you need root access for libvirt or to access
a block device):
sudo ./run virt-cat -d LinuxGuest /etc/passwd
To set environment variables, you can either do:
LIBGUESTFS_HV=/my/qemu ./run guestfish
または:
./run env LIBGUESTFS_HV=/my/qemu guestfish
Files in the top source directory that begin with the prefix
local* are
ignored by git. These files can contain local configuration or scripts that
you need to build libguestfs.
I have a file called
localconfigure which is a simple wrapper around
configure containing local configure customizations that I need. It
looks like this:
. localenv
./configure.sh \
-C \
--enable-werror \
"$@"
So I can use this to build libguestfs:
./localconfigure && make
If there is a file in the top build directory called
localenv, then it
will be sourced by "make". This file can contain any local
environment variables needed, eg. for skipping tests:
# Skip this test, it is broken.
export SKIP_TEST_BTRFS_FSCK=1
Note that
localenv is included by the top Makefile (so it’s a
Makefile fragment). But if it is also sourced by your
localconfigure
script then it is used as a shell script.
There are many "./configure" options. Use:
./configure --help
to list them all. This section covers some of the more important ones.
- --disable-appliance --disable-daemon
- See "USING A PREBUILT BINARY APPLIANCE"
below.
- --disable-erlang
- --disable-gobject
- --disable-golang
- --disable-haskell
- --disable-lua
- --disable-ocaml
- --disable-perl
- --disable-php
- --disable-python
- --disable-ruby
- Disable specific language bindings, even if
"./configure" finds all the necessary libraries are installed so
that they could be compiled.
Note that disabling OCaml (bindings) or Perl will have the knock-on effect
of disabling parts of the test suite and some tools.
OCaml is required to build libguestfs and this requirement cannot be
removed. Using --disable-ocaml only disables the bindings.
- --disable-fuse
- Disable FUSE support in the API and the
guestmount(1) tool.
- --disable-static
- Don’t build a static linked version of the
libguestfs library.
- --enable-install-daemon
- Normally guestfsd(8) is not installed by "make
install", since that wouldn't be useful (instead it is
"installed" inside the supermin appliance). However if packagers
are building "libguestfs live" then they should use this
option.
- --enable-werror
- This turns compiler warnings into errors (ie.
"-Werror"). Use this for development, especially when submitting
patches. It should generally not be used for production or distro
builds.
- --with-default-backend=libvirt
- This controls the default method that libguestfs uses to
run qemu (see "BACKEND" in guestfs(3)). If not specified,
the default backend is "direct", which means libguestfs runs
qemu directly.
Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) ≥ 7 use this flag to
change the default backend to "libvirt", because (especially in
RHEL) the policy is not to allow any program to run qemu except via
libvirt.
Note that despite this setting, all backends are built into libguestfs, and
you can override the backend at runtime by setting the $LIBGUESTFS_BACKEND
environment variable (or using API methods).
- --with-distro=REDHAT|DEBIAN|...
- Libguestfs needs to know which Linux distro is in use so it
can choose package names for the appliance correctly (see for example
appliance/packagelist.in). It normally does this automatically.
However if you can building or packaging libguestfs on a new distro then you
can use --with-distro to specify that the distro is similar to an
existing one (eg. --with-distro=REDHAT if the distro is a new Red
Hat or CentOS derivative).
Note that if your distro is completely new then it may still require
upstream modifications.
-
--with-extra="distroname=version,libvirt,..."
- --with-extra="local"
- This option controls the "extra" field returned
by "guestfs_version" in guestfs(3) and also printed by
virt tools' --version option. It is a free text field, but a good
idea is to encode a comma-separated list of facts such as the distro name
and version, whether libvirt is the default backend, and anything else
that may help with debugging problems raised by users.
For custom and/or local builds, this can be set to "local" to
indicate this is not a distro build.
- --without-libvirt
- Compile libguestfs without libvirt support, even if libvirt
development libraries are installed.
-
--with-qemu="bin1 bin2 ..."
- Provide an alternate qemu binary (or list of binaries).
This can be overridden at runtime by setting the "LIBGUESTFS_HV"
environment variable.
-
--with-supermin-packager-config=yum.conf
- This passes the --packager-config option to
supermin(1).
The most common use for this is to build the appliance using an alternate
repository (instead of using the installed yum/dnf/apt/etc configuration
to find and download packages). You might need to use this if you want to
build libguestfs without having a network connection. Examples of using
this can be found in the Fedora "libguestfs.spec" file (see
"BUILDING A PACKAGE FOR FEDORA" below for resources).
-
--with-supermin-extra-options="--opt1 --opt2
... "
- Pass additional options to supermin(1). See
appliance/make.sh.in to understand precisely what this does.
- PYTHON
- This environment variable may be set to point to a python
binary (eg. "python3"). When "./configure" runs, it
inspects this python binary to find the version of Python, the location of
Python libraries and so on.
- SUPERMIN
- This environment variable can be set to choose an
alternative supermin(1) binary. This might be used, for example, if
you want to use a newer upstream version of supermin than is packaged for
your distro, or if supermin is not packaged at all. On RHEL 7, you must
set "SUPERMIN=/usr/bin/supermin5" when compiling
libguestfs.
A common problem is with broken or incompatible qemu releases.
Different versions of qemu have problems booting the appliance for different
reasons. This varies between versions of qemu, and Linux distributions which
add their own patches.
If you find a problem, you could try using your own qemu built from source (qemu
is very easy to build from source), with a "qemu wrapper". See
"QEMU WRAPPERS" in
guestfs(3).
By default the configure script will look for qemu-kvm (KVM support). KVM is
much faster than using plain qemu.
You may also need to enable KVM support for non-root users, by following these
instructions:
http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/FAQ#How_can_I_use_kvm_with_a_non-privileged_user.3F
On some systems, this will work too:
chmod 0666 /dev/kvm
On some systems, the chmod will not survive a reboot, and you will need to make
edits to the udev configuration.
export CC=clang
./configure
make
To understand what the libguestfs appliance means, see
guestfs-internals(1).
If you are using non-Linux, or a Linux distribution that does not have
supermin(1) support, or simply if you don't want to build your own
libguestfs appliance, then you can use one of the prebuilt binary appliances
that we supply:
http://libguestfs.org/download/binaries/appliance
Build libguestfs like this:
./configure --disable-appliance --disable-daemon
make
Set $LIBGUESTFS_PATH to the path where you unpacked the appliance tarball, eg:
export LIBGUESTFS_PATH=/usr/local/lib/guestfs/appliance
and run the libguestfs programs and virt tools in the normal way, eg. using the
./run script (see above).
The Fedora spec file is stored under:
http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/cgit/rpms/libguestfs.git/
Libguestfs is built in Fedora using the ordinary Fedora build system (Koji).
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) builds of libguestfs are heavily patched. There
are broadly two types of patches we apply:
- •
- We disable many features that we do not wish to support for
RHEL customers. For example, the "libguestfs live" feature is
disabled.
- •
- We backport upstream features.
The patches we apply to RHEL releases are available publically in the upstream
git repository, in a branch called "rhel-x.y"
For example, the RHEL 7.3 patches are available here:
https://github.com/libguestfs/libguestfs/commits/rhel-7.3
The sources and spec files for RHEL versions of libguestfs are available on
https://git.centos.org/project/rpms, and see also
https://wiki.centos.org/Sources.
guestfs(3),
guestfs-examples(3),
guestfs-hacking(1),
guestfs-internals(1),
guestfs-performance(1),
guestfs-release-notes(1),
guestfs-testing(1),
libguestfs-test-tool(1),
libguestfs-make-fixed-appliance(1),
http://libguestfs.org/.
Richard W.M. Jones ("rjones at redhat dot com")
Copyright (C) 2009-2020 Red Hat Inc.
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.