guestfs-internals - Man Page

This process has evolved and continues to evolve.  The description here corresponds only to the current version of libguestfs and is provided for information only.

In order to follow the stages involved below, enable libguestfs debugging (set the environment variable LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG=1).

Create the appliance

supermin --build is invoked to create the kernel, a small initrd and the appliance.

The appliance is cached in /var/tmp/.guestfs-<UID> (or in another directory if LIBGUESTFS_CACHEDIR or TMPDIR are set).

For a complete description of how the appliance is created and cached, read the supermin(1) man page.

Start qemu and boot the kernel

qemu is invoked to boot the kernel.

Run the initrd

supermin --build builds a small initrd.  The initrd is not the appliance.  The purpose of the initrd is to load enough kernel modules in order that the appliance itself can be mounted and started.

The initrd is a cpio archive called /var/tmp/.guestfs-<UID>/appliance.d/initrd.

When the initrd has started you will see messages showing that kernel modules are being loaded, similar to this:

 supermin: ext2 mini initrd starting up
 supermin: mounting /sys
 supermin: internal insmod libcrc32c.ko
 supermin: internal insmod crc32c-intel.ko

Find and mount the appliance device

The appliance is a sparse file containing an ext2 filesystem which contains a familiar (although reduced in size) Linux operating system. It would normally be called /var/tmp/.guestfs-<UID>/appliance.d/root.

The regular disks being inspected by libguestfs are the first devices exposed by qemu (eg. as /dev/vda).

The last disk added to qemu is the appliance itself (eg. /dev/vdb if there was only one regular disk).

Thus the final job of the initrd is to locate the appliance disk, mount it, and switch root into the appliance, and run /init from the appliance.

If this works successfully you will see messages such as:

 supermin: picked /sys/block/vdb/dev as root device
 supermin: creating /dev/root as block special 252:16
 supermin: mounting new root on /root
 supermin: chroot
 Starting /init script ...

Note that Starting /init script ... indicates that the appliance's init script is now running.

Initialize the appliance

The appliance itself now initializes itself.  This involves starting certain processes like udev, possibly printing some debug information, and finally running the daemon (guestfsd).

The daemon

Finally the daemon (guestfsd) runs inside the appliance.  If it runs you should see:

 verbose daemon enabled

The daemon expects to see a named virtio-serial port exposed by qemu and connected on the other end to the library.

The daemon connects to this port (and hence to the library) and sends a four byte message GUESTFS_LAUNCH_FLAG, which initiates the communication protocol (see below).

Don’t rely on using this protocol directly.  This section documents how it currently works, but it may change at any time.

The protocol used to talk between the library and the daemon running inside the qemu virtual machine is a simple RPC mechanism built on top of XDR (RFC 1014, RFC 1832, RFC 4506).

The detailed format of structures is in common/protocol/guestfs_protocol.x (note: this file is automatically generated).

There are two broad cases, ordinary functions that don’t have any FileIn and FileOut parameters, which are handled with very simple request/reply messages.  Then there are functions that have any FileIn or FileOut parameters, which use the same request and reply messages, but they may also be followed by files sent using a chunked encoding.

ORDINARY FUNCTIONS (NO FILEIN/FILEOUT PARAMS)

For ordinary functions, the request message is:

 total length (header + arguments,
      but not including the length word itself)
 struct guestfs_message_header (encoded as XDR)
 struct guestfs_<foo>_args (encoded as XDR)

The total length field allows the daemon to allocate a fixed size buffer into which it slurps the rest of the message.  As a result, the total length is limited to GUESTFS_MESSAGE_MAX bytes (currently 4MB), which means the effective size of any request is limited to somewhere under this size.

Note also that many functions don’t take any arguments, in which case the guestfs_foo_args is completely omitted.

The header contains the procedure number (guestfs_proc) which is how the receiver knows what type of args structure to expect, or none at all.

For functions that take optional arguments, the optional arguments are encoded in the guestfs_foo_args structure in the same way as ordinary arguments.  A bitmask in the header indicates which optional arguments are meaningful.  The bitmask is also checked to see if it contains bits set which the daemon does not know about (eg. if more optional arguments were added in a later version of the library), and this causes the call to be rejected.

The reply message for ordinary functions is:

 total length (header + ret,
      but not including the length word itself)
 struct guestfs_message_header (encoded as XDR)
 struct guestfs_<foo>_ret (encoded as XDR)

As above the guestfs_foo_ret structure may be completely omitted for functions that return no formal return values.

As above the total length of the reply is limited to GUESTFS_MESSAGE_MAX.

In the case of an error, a flag is set in the header, and the reply message is slightly changed:

 total length (header + error,
      but not including the length word itself)
 struct guestfs_message_header (encoded as XDR)
 struct guestfs_message_error (encoded as XDR)

The guestfs_message_error structure contains the error message as a string.

FUNCTIONS THAT HAVE FILEIN PARAMETERS

A FileIn parameter indicates that we transfer a file into the guest.  The normal request message is sent (see above).  However this is followed by a sequence of file chunks.

 total length (header + arguments,
      but not including the length word itself,
      and not including the chunks)
 struct guestfs_message_header (encoded as XDR)
 struct guestfs_<foo>_args (encoded as XDR)
 sequence of chunks for FileIn param #0
 sequence of chunks for FileIn param #1 etc.

The "sequence of chunks" is:

 length of chunk (not including length word itself)
 struct guestfs_chunk (encoded as XDR)
 length of chunk
 struct guestfs_chunk (encoded as XDR)
   ...
 length of chunk
 struct guestfs_chunk (with data.data_len == 0)

The final chunk has the data_len field set to zero.  Additionally a flag is set in the final chunk to indicate either successful completion or early cancellation.

At time of writing there are no functions that have more than one FileIn parameter.  However this is (theoretically) supported, by sending the sequence of chunks for each FileIn parameter one after another (from left to right).

Both the library (sender) and the daemon (receiver) may cancel the transfer.  The library does this by sending a chunk with a special flag set to indicate cancellation.  When the daemon sees this, it cancels the whole RPC, does not send any reply, and goes back to reading the next request.

The daemon may also cancel.  It does this by writing a special word GUESTFS_CANCEL_FLAG to the socket.  The library listens for this during the transfer, and if it gets it, it will cancel the transfer (it sends a cancel chunk).  The special word is chosen so that even if cancellation happens right at the end of the transfer (after the library has finished writing and has started listening for the reply), the "spurious" cancel flag will not be confused with the reply message.

This protocol allows the transfer of arbitrary sized files (no 32 bit limit), and also files where the size is not known in advance (eg. from pipes or sockets).  However the chunks are rather small (GUESTFS_MAX_CHUNK_SIZE), so that neither the library nor the daemon need to keep much in memory.

FUNCTIONS THAT HAVE FILEOUT PARAMETERS

The protocol for FileOut parameters is exactly the same as for FileIn parameters, but with the roles of daemon and library reversed.

 total length (header + ret,
      but not including the length word itself,
      and not including the chunks)
 struct guestfs_message_header (encoded as XDR)
 struct guestfs_<foo>_ret (encoded as XDR)
 sequence of chunks for FileOut param #0
 sequence of chunks for FileOut param #1 etc.

INITIAL MESSAGE

When the daemon launches it sends an initial word (GUESTFS_LAUNCH_FLAG) which indicates that the guest and daemon is alive.  This is what "guestfs_launch" in guestfs(3) waits for.

PROGRESS NOTIFICATION MESSAGES

The daemon may send progress notification messages at any time.  These are distinguished by the normal length word being replaced by GUESTFS_PROGRESS_FLAG, followed by a fixed size progress message.

The library turns them into progress callbacks (see "GUESTFS_EVENT_PROGRESS" in guestfs(3)) if there is a callback registered, or discards them if not.

The daemon self-limits the frequency of progress messages it sends (see daemon/proto.c:notify_progress).  Not all calls generate progress messages.

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 LIBGUESTFS_PATH environment variable.

Normally a supermin appliance is located on this path (see "SUPERMIN APPLIANCE" in supermin(1)).  libguestfs reconstructs this into a full appliance by running 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:

• kernel
• initrd
• root
• README.fixed (note that it must be present as well)

If the fixed appliance is found, libguestfs skips supermin entirely and just runs the virtual machine (using qemu or the current backend, see "BACKEND" in guestfs(3)) 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 libguestfs-make-fixed-appliance(1), copy it over, and use that to run libguestfs.