On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 at 06:47:44PM +0200, Pino Toscano wrote: > index e2ee1b5..eebab53 100644 > --- a/src/guestfs.pod > +++ b/src/guestfs.pod > @@ -3540,6 +3540,30 @@ Finally, the child process sends asynchronous messages > back to the > main program, such as kernel log messages. You can register a > callback to receive these messages. > > +=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 INTERNALS > > =head2 APPLIANCE BOOT PROCESS
I think this section is in the wrong place, since it should be under INTERNALS. However I don't like this patch for a couple of reasons, one of which to be fair I didn't discuss before: - I'd kind of like to split up the giant guestfs(3) man page, for the obvious reason that it's huge and hard to navigate. In such a split, there might be a guestfs-internals(3) man page containing the current content of guestfs(3)/INTERNALS. - If we split up the man page into many pages, then I don't particularly see a problem with keeping the description of the fixed appliance in the current place, where it is close to the relevant tool. Rich. -- Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones Read my programming and virtualization blog: http://rwmj.wordpress.com libguestfs lets you edit virtual machines. Supports shell scripting, bindings from many languages. http://libguestfs.org _______________________________________________ Libguestfs mailing list [email protected] https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/libguestfs
