| guestfs-release-notes-1.26(1) | Virtualization Support | guestfs-release-notes-1.26(1) |
guestfs-release-notes - libguestfs Release Notes
These release notes only cover the differences from the previous stable/dev branch split (1.24.0). For detailed changelogs, please see the git repository, or the ChangeLog file distributed in the tarball.
Tools
virt-customize(1) is a new tool for customizing virtual machine disk images. It lets you install packages, edit configuration files, run scripts, set passwords and so on. virt-builder(1) and virt-sysprep(1) use virt-customize, and command line options across all these tools are now identical.
virt-diff(1) is a new tool for showing the differences between the filesystems of two virtual machines. It is mainly useful when showing what files have been changed between snapshots.
virt-builder(1) has been greatly enhanced. There are many more ways to customize the virtual machine. It can pull templates from multiple repositories. A parallelized internal xzcat implementation speeds up template decompression. Virt-builder uses an optimizing planner to choose the fastest way to build the VM. It is now easier to use virt-builder from other programs. Internationalization support has been added to metadata. More efficient SELinux relabelling of files. Can build guests for multiple architectures. Error messages have been improved. (Pino Toscano)
virt-sparsify(1) has a new --in-place option. This sparsifies an image in place (without copying it) and is also much faster. (Lots of help provided by Paolo Bonzini)
virt-sysprep(1) can delete and scrub files under user control. You can lock user accounts or set random passwords on accounts. Can remove more log files. Can unsubscribe a guest from Red Hat Subscription Manager. New flexible way to enable and disable operations. (Wanlong Gao, Pino Toscano)
virt-win-reg(1) allows you to use URIs to specify remote disk images.
virt-format(1) can now pass the extra space that it recovers back to the host.
guestfish(1) has additional environment variables to give fine control over the "><fs>" prompt. Guestfish reads its (rarely used) configuration file in a different order now so that local settings override global settings. (Pino Toscano)
virt-make-fs(1) was rewritten in C, but is unchanged in terms of functionality and command line usage.
Language bindings
The OCaml bindings have a new "Guestfs.Errno" module, used to check the error number returned by "Guestfs.last_errno".
PHP tests now work. (Pino Toscano)
Inspection
Inspection can recognize Debian live images.
Architectures
ARMv7 (32 bit) now supports KVM acceleration.
Aarch64 (ARM 64 bit) is supported, but the appliance part does not work yet.
PPC64 support has been fixed and enhanced.
This was caused by a NULL pointer dereference causing a denial of service, and is not thought to be exploitable any further.
See commit d70ceb4cbea165c960710576efac5a5716055486 for the fix. This fix is included in libguestfs stable branches ≥ 1.26.0, ≥ 1.24.6 and ≥ 1.22.8, and also in RHEL ≥ 7.0. Earlier versions of libguestfs are not vulnerable.
GUID parameters are now validated when they are passed to API calls, whereas previously you could have passed any string. (Pino Toscano)
New APIs
export LIBGUESTFS_BACKEND=direct
export LIBGUESTFS_BACKEND_SETTINGS=force_tcg
The following extra packages are required to build libguestfs 1.26:
PO message extraction rewritten to be more robust. (Pino Toscano)
"podwrapper" gives an error if the --insert or --verbatim argument pattern is not found.
Libguestfs now passes the qemu -enable-fips option to enable FIPS, if qemu supports it.
"./configure --without-qemu" can be used if you don't want to specify a default hypervisor.
Copy-on-write [COW] overlays, used for example for read-only drives, are now created through an internal backend API (".create_cow_overlay").
Libvirt backend uses some funky C macros to generate XML. These are simpler and safer.
The ChangeLog file format has changed. It is now just the same as "git log", instead of using a custom format.
Appliance start-up has changed:
Note that you must configure your kernel to have "CONFIG_UEVENT_HELPER_PATH=""" otherwise you will get strange LVM errors (this applies as much to any Linux machine, not just libguestfs). (Peter Rajnoha)
Libguestfs can now be built on arches that have ocamlc(1) but not ocamlopt(1). (Hilko Bengen, Olaf Hering)
You cannot use "./configure --disable-daemon --enable-appliance". It made no sense anyway. Now it is expressly forbidden by the configure script.
The packagelist file uses "m4" for macro expansion instead of "cpp".
guestfs-examples(1), guestfs-faq(1), guestfs-performance(1), guestfs-recipes(1), guestfs-testing(1), guestfs(3), guestfish(1), http://libguestfs.org/
Richard W.M. Jones
Copyright (C) 2009-2020 Red Hat Inc.
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.
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:
| 2021-01-05 | libguestfs-1.44.0 |