NAME

       guestfsd - guestfs daemon

SYNOPSIS

        guestfsd [-r] [-v|--verbose]

DESCRIPTION

       "guestfsd" is the libguestfs daemon.  Normal users never need to run this program
       explicitly.  This man page discusses what "guestfsd" does in both the libguestfs appliance
       and when using libguestfs live.

   LIBGUESTFS APPLIANCE
       For the architecture of the libguestfs appliance, see "ARCHITECTURE" in guestfs(3).

       After the appliance boots, the /init script in the appliance starts "guestfsd" with no
       arguments.  "guestfsd" opens the virtio-serial port on a known path (see "FILES").  It
       initiates the protocol (see "COMMUNICATION PROTOCOL" in guestfs(3)) and processes requests
       one at a time from the library until the appliance is destroyed.

       Filesystems are mounted under /sysroot and all filesystem operations happen relative to
       this directory.

   LIBGUESTFS LIVE
       In the libguestfs live case, "guestfsd -r" is started from the rc-scripts, systemd, etc.

       The "-r" option causes the daemon to operate on the root filesystem instead of /sysroot.

       Currently (because of limitations in virtio-serial) only one client can connect at a time,
       and "guestfsd" must be restarted after each client disconnects.  If libguestfs live were
       changed to use a different transport such as TCP/IP then this limitation could be removed.

OPTIONS

       -?
       --help
           Display brief help.

       -c CHANNEL
       --channel CHANNEL
       --channel fd:N
           Pass the name of the virtio-serial channel, serial port, etc.  over which guestfsd
           will communicate with the library.  If this parameter is not given, then an internal
           default port is used.

           The "fd:N" form causes guestfsd to use the file descriptor "N" directly.

       -l
       --listen
           Instead of opening the "guestfs_channel" and thus expecting that it already exists,
           create the channel as a Unix domain socket, listen on it, and accept a single
           connection.  This is mainly used for testing the daemon.

       -n
       --network
           Enable network features in the daemon.

       -r  Set the root filesystem to be / (instead of the default which is /sysroot).  Also do
           not unmount filesystems when the daemon exits.

           This option is used to enable libguestfs live.

       -v
       --verbose
           Enable verbose messages for debugging.

           The verbose flag is also set if the Linux command line contains the substring
           "guestfs_verbose=1".

EXIT STATUS

       This program returns 0 if successful, or non-zero if there was an error.

FILES

       /dev/virtio-ports/org.libguestfs.channel.0
           The virtio serial port which "guestfsd" connects to.

       /proc/cmdline
           The Linux command line is parsed to discover "guestfs_*" flags.  The following flags
           are understood:

           guestfs_verbose=1
               Enable verbose messages.  This flag is passed by the libguestfs library to the
               appliance to make the daemon more verbose (it acts like the -v flag on the command
               line).  Unrelated to the daemon, it also causes the appliance init script to print
               out a lot more debugging information.

           guestfs_channel=PATH
               Set the path to the virtio-serial channel to something other than the default
               (which is /dev/virtio-ports/org.libguestfs.channel.0).  This is used by the User-
               Mode Linux backend to use a regular emulated serial port instead of virtio-serial.

           guestfs_network=1
               This is set if the appliance network is enabled (see "guestfs_set_network").

SEE ALSO

       guestfs(3), http://libguestfs.org/.

AUTHOR

       Richard W.M. Jones http://people.redhat.com/~rjones/

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (C) 2009-2023 Red Hat Inc.

LICENSE

       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.

BUGS

       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.