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FAQ: Make issues which will be fixed in libguestfs >= 1.26 / supermin >= 5.

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Richard W.M. Jones
2014-03-12 21:41:08 +00:00
parent 8df1c47269
commit a13109c260
1 changed files with 15 additions and 63 deletions
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examples/guestfs-faq.pod
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@@ -162,6 +162,8 @@ us (see previous section).
=head2 supermin-helper: ext2: parent directory not found
[This issue is fixed permanently in libguestfs E<ge> 1.26.]
If you see any of these errors on Debian/Ubuntu, you need to run the
following command:
@@ -437,83 +439,33 @@ policy.
=head2 Libguestfs has a really long list of dependencies!
That's because it does a lot of things.
Libguestfs -- I<as it is packaged for Fedora> -- satisfies the
following conditions:
The base library doesn't depend on very much, but there are three
causes of the long list of other dependencies:
=over 4
=item 1.
The Fedora package is full featured, that is, it supports every
possible feature of libguestfs (every filesystem, every filesystem
tool, etc.)
A common request is to split up libguestfs into separate feature areas
so you could, say, install XFS support and NTFS support separately.
This is not possible right now.
Libguestfs has to be able to read and edit many different disk
formats. For example, XFS support requires XFS tools.
=item 2.
The download size of the libguestfs package is relatively small
(ie. not ten's of megabytes as it would be if it included a complete,
"statically linked" appliance).
There are language bindings for many different languages, all
requiring their own development tools. All language bindings (except
C) are optional.
=item 3.
The Fedora package automatically updates itself if there is a security
update. It doesn't include a huge static blob that has to be rebuilt
and users have to re-download if there is an update.
=item 4.
Able to be installed without needing direct network access. This is
important when using closed networks, privately mirrored repositories
or RHN Satellite.
=item 5.
The Fedora package can be tested during the build.
There are some optional library features which can be disabled.
=back
If you want to drop any one of those conditions, then you can package
libguestfs differently and make it have fewer dependencies, fewer
features or a faster start up time:
=over 4
=item 1. (full featured)
Take C<appliance/packagelist.in> in the source, and comment out any
features you don't actually care about. For example if you never
anticipate editing a Windows guest, remove all the ntfs-related
packages. You can get away with fewer dependencies.
=item 2. (download size) / 3. (updates)
Use L<libguestfs-make-fixed-appliance(1)> to build a compressed
appliance. Bundle this with your package and set C<$LIBGUESTFS_PATH>
to point to it. Users will have to download this large appliance, but
no dependencies are needed, and L<supermin-helper(1)> is not used.
=item 4. (network access)
Reconstruct and cache the appliance once during package install. The
Debian packaging currently works like this, but requires network
access during package install.
=item 5. (tests)
Don't run any tests during the build. The build will be much
faster, but also less likely to work correctly.
Note that running the tests in C<tests/qemu> is probably a good idea,
since those are sanity tests. Also you should do S<C<make quickcheck>>
to ensure libguestfs is basically working.
=back
Since libguestfs E<ge> 1.26 it is possible to split up the appliance
dependencies (item 1 in the list above) and thus have (eg)
C<libguestfs-xfs> as a separate subpackage for processing XFS disk
images. We encourage downstream packagers to start splitting the base
libguestfs package into smaller subpackages.
=head2 Errors during launch on Fedora E<ge> 18, RHEL E<ge> 7