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Improve fixed appliance documentation

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Move the "FIXED APPLIANCE" section from
libguestfs-make-fixed-appliance(1) to the "INTERNALS" section of
guestfs(3), so it's more visible and less hidden in the documentation
of a rarely-used tool.  Also slightly improve it.

Expand the FAQ question about libguestfs without supermin, mentioning
the build options needed and pointing to the aforementioned new section.
This commit is contained in:
Pino Toscano
2015-06-16 09:31:25 +02:00
parent d11857aa87
commit 993140219c
3 changed files with 49 additions and 27 deletions
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28
appliance/libguestfs-make-fixed-appliance.pod
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@@ -38,8 +38,8 @@ L<guestfs-performance(1)>).
=back
For deeper understanding of why you might need this tool, read the
section L</FIXED APPLIANCE> below.
For deeper understanding of why you might need this tool, read
L<guestfs(3)/FIXED APPLIANCE>.
Instead of running this tool, you can download fixed appliances from
L<http://libguestfs.org/download/binaries/appliance/>. These
@@ -120,30 +120,6 @@ completely silent when it is running.
=back
=head1 FIXED APPLIANCE
When libguestfs (or libguestfs tools) are run, they search a path
looking for an appliance. The path is built into libguestfs, or can
be set using the C<LIBGUESTFS_PATH> environment variable.
Normally a supermin appliance is located on this path (see
L<supermin(1)/SUPERMIN APPLIANCE>). libguestfs reconstructs this
into a full appliance by running C<supermin --build>.
However, a simpler "fixed appliance" can also be used. libguestfs
detects this by looking for a directory on the path containing four
files called F<kernel>, F<initrd>, F<root> and F<README.fixed> (note
the F<README.fixed> file must be present as well).
If the fixed appliance is found, libguestfs skips supermin entirely
and just runs qemu with the kernel, initrd and root disk from the
fixed appliance.
Thus the fixed appliance can be used when a platform or Linux distro
does not support supermin. You build the fixed appliance on a
platform that does support supermin, and copy it over, and use that
to run libguestfs.
=head1 LICENSING
The fixed appliance is a complete Linux binary distro. If you

11
examples/guestfs-faq.pod
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@@ -431,7 +431,16 @@ enough supermin installed, then see the previous question.
If supermin 5 doesn't support your distro at all, you will need to use
the "fixed appliance method" where you use a pre-compiled binary
appliance. See: L<http://libguestfs.org/download/binaries/appliance/>
appliance. To build libguestfs without supermin, you need to pass
C<--disable-appliance --disable-daemon> to either F<./autogen.sh> or
F<./configure> (depending whether you are building respectively from
git or from tarballs). Then, when using libguestfs, you B<must> set
the C<LIBGUESTFS_PATH> environment variable to the directory of a
pre-compiled appliance, as also described in
L<guestfs(3)/FIXED APPLIANCE>.
For pre-compiled appliances, see also:
L<http://libguestfs.org/download/binaries/appliance/>.
Patches to port supermin to more Linux distros are welcome.

37
src/guestfs.pod
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@@ -3795,6 +3795,43 @@ The daemon self-limits the frequency of progress messages it sends
(see C<daemon/proto.c:notify_progress>). Not all calls generate
progress messages.
=head2 FIXED APPLIANCE
When libguestfs (or libguestfs tools) are run, they search a path
looking for an appliance. The path is built into libguestfs, or can
be set using the C<LIBGUESTFS_PATH> environment variable.
Normally a supermin appliance is located on this path (see
L<supermin(1)/SUPERMIN APPLIANCE>). libguestfs reconstructs this
into a full appliance by running C<supermin --build>.
However, a simpler "fixed appliance" can also be used. libguestfs
detects this by looking for a directory on the path containing all
the following files:
=over 4
=item * F<kernel>
=item * F<initrd>
=item * F<root>
=item * F<README.fixed> (note that it B<must> be present as well)
=back
If the fixed appliance is found, libguestfs skips supermin entirely
and just runs the virtual machine (using qemu or the current backend,
see L</BACKEND>) with the kernel, initrd and root disk from the fixed
appliance.
Thus the fixed appliance can be used when a platform or a Linux
distribution does not support supermin. You build the fixed appliance
on a platform that does support supermin using
L<libguestfs-make-fixed-appliance(1)>, copy it over, and use that
to run libguestfs.
=head1 LIBGUESTFS VERSION NUMBERS
Since April 2010, libguestfs has started to make separate development