NAME¶
virt-ls - List files in a virtual machine
SYNOPSIS¶
virt-ls [--options] -d domname directory [directory ...]
virt-ls [--options] -a disk.img [-a disk.img ...] directory [directory ...]
Old style:
virt-ls [--options] domname directory
virt-ls [--options] disk.img [disk.img ...] directory
DESCRIPTION¶
"virt-ls" lists filenames, file sizes, checksums, extended attributes
and more from a virtual machine or disk image.
Multiple directory names can be given, in which case the output from each is
concatenated.
To list directories from a libvirt guest use the
-d option to specify the
name of the guest. For a disk image, use the
-a option.
"virt-ls" can do many simple file listings. For more complicated cases
you may need to use
guestfish(1), or write a program directly to the
guestfs(3) API.
EXAMPLES¶
Get a list of all files and directories in a virtual machine:
virt-ls -R -d guest /
List all setuid or setgid programs in a Linux virtual machine:
virt-ls -lR -d guest / | grep '^- [42]'
List all public-writable directories in a Linux virtual machine:
virt-ls -lR -d guest / | grep '^d ...7'
List all Unix domain sockets in a Linux virtual machine:
virt-ls -lR -d guest / | grep '^s'
List all regular files with filenames ending in '.png':
virt-ls -lR -d guest / | grep -i '^-.*\.png$'
To display files larger than 10MB in home directories:
virt-ls -lR -d guest /home | awk '$3 > 10*1024*1024'
Find everything modified in the last 7 days:
virt-ls -lR -d guest --time-days / | awk '$6 <= 7'
Find regular files modified in the last 24 hours:
virt-ls -lR -d guest --time-days / | grep '^-' | awk '$6 < 1'
DIFFERENCES IN SNAPSHOTS AND BACKING FILES¶
Find the differences between files in a guest and an earlier snapshot of the
same guest.
virt-ls -lR -a snapshot.img / --uids --time-t > old
virt-ls -lR -a current.img / --uids --time-t > new
diff -u old new | less
The commands above won't find files where the content has changed but the
metadata (eg. file size and modification date) is the same. To do that, you
need to add the
--checksum parameter to both "virt-ls"
commands.
--checksum can be quite slow since it has to read and compute
a checksum of every regular file in the virtual machine.
OUTPUT MODES¶
"virt-ls" has four output modes, controlled by different combinations
of the
-l and
-R options.
SIMPLE LISTING¶
A simple listing is like the ordinary
ls(1) command:
$ virt-ls -d guest /
bin
boot
[etc.]
LONG LISTING¶
With the
-l (
--long) option, the output is like the "ls
-l" command (more specifically, like the "guestfs_ll"
function).
$ virt-ls -l -d guest /
total 204
dr-xr-xr-x. 2 root root 4096 2009-08-25 19:06 bin
dr-xr-xr-x. 5 root root 3072 2009-08-25 19:06 boot
[etc.]
Note that while this is useful for displaying a directory, do not try parsing
this output in another program. Use "RECURSIVE LONG LISTING"
instead.
RECURSIVE LISTING¶
With the
-R (
--recursive) option, "virt-ls" lists the
names of files and directories recursively:
$ virt-ls -R -d guest /tmp
foo
foo/bar
[etc.]
To generate this output, "virt-ls" runs the "guestfs_find0"
function and converts "\0" characters to "\n".
RECURSIVE LONG LISTING¶
Using
-lR options together changes the output to display directories
recursively, with file stats, and optionally other features such as checksums
and extended attributes.
Most of the interesting features of "virt-ls" are only available when
using
-lR mode.
The fields are normally space-separated. Filenames are
not quoted, so you
cannot use the output in another program (because filenames can contain spaces
and other unsafe characters). If the guest was untrusted and someone knew you
were using "virt-ls" to analyze the guest, they could play tricks on
you by creating filenames with embedded newline characters. To
safely
parse the output in another program, use the
--csv (Comma-Separated
Values) option.
Note that this output format is completely unrelated to the "ls -lR"
command.
$ virt-ls -lR -d guest /bin
d 0555 4096 /bin
- 0755 123 /bin/alsaunmute
- 0755 28328 /bin/arch
l 0777 4 /bin/awk -> gawk
- 0755 27216 /bin/basename
- 0755 943360 /bin/bash
[etc.]
These basic fields are always shown:
- type
- The file type, one of: "-" (regular file),
"d" (directory), "c" (character device), "b"
(block device), "p" (named pipe), "l" (symbolic link),
"s" (socket) or "u" (unknown).
- permissions
- The Unix permissions, displayed as a 4 digit octal
number.
- size
- The size of the file. This is shown in bytes unless
-h or --human-readable option is given, in which case this
is shown as a human-readable number.
- path
- The full path of the file or directory.
- link
- For symbolic links only, the link target.
In
-lR mode, additional command line options enable the display of more
fields.
With the
--uids flag, these additional fields are displayed before the
path:
- uid
- gid
- The UID and GID of the owner of the file (displayed
numerically). Note these only make sense in the context of a Unix-like
guest.
With the
--times flag, these additional fields are displayed:
- atime
- The time of last access.
- mtime
- The time of last modification.
- ctime
- The time of last status change.
The time fields are displayed as string dates and times, unless one of the
--time-t,
--time-relative or
--time-days flags is given.
With the
--extra-stats flag, these additional fields are displayed:
- device
- The device containing the file (displayed as major:minor).
This may not match devices as known to the guest.
- inode
- The inode number.
- nlink
- The number of hard links.
- rdev
- For block and char special files, the device (displayed as
major:minor).
- blocks
- The number of 512 byte blocks allocated to the file.
With the
--checksum flag, the checksum of the file contents is shown
(only for regular files). Computing file checksums can take a considerable
amount of time.
OPTIONS¶
- --help
- Display brief help.
- -a file
- --add file
- Add file which should be a disk image from a virtual
machine. If the virtual machine has multiple block devices, you must
supply all of them with separate -a options.
The format of the disk image is auto-detected. To override this and force a
particular format use the --format=.. option.
- --checksum
- --checksum=crc|md5|sha1|sha224|sha256|sha384|sha512
- Display checksum over file contents for regular files. With
no argument, this defaults to using md5. Using an argument, you can
select the checksum type to use.
This option only has effect in -lR output mode. See "RECURSIVE
LONG LISTING" above.
- -c URI
- --connect URI
- If using libvirt, connect to the given URI. If
omitted, then we connect to the default libvirt hypervisor.
If you specify guest block devices directly ( -a), then libvirt is
not used at all.
- --csv
- Write out the results in CSV format (comma-separated
values). This format can be imported easily into databases and
spreadsheets, but read "NOTE ABOUT CSV FORMAT" below.
- -d guest
- --domain guest
- Add all the disks from the named libvirt guest. Domain
UUIDs can be used instead of names.
- --echo-keys
- When prompting for keys and passphrases, virt-ls normally
turns echoing off so you cannot see what you are typing. If you are not
worried about Tempest attacks and there is no one else in the room you can
specify this flag to see what you are typing.
- --extra-stats
- Display extra stats.
This option only has effect in -lR output mode. See "RECURSIVE
LONG LISTING" above.
- --format=raw|qcow2|..
- --format
- The default for the -a option is to auto-detect the
format of the disk image. Using this forces the disk format for -a
options which follow on the command line. Using --format with no
argument switches back to auto-detection for subsequent -a options.
For example:
virt-ls --format=raw -a disk.img /dir
forces raw format (no auto-detection) for "disk.img".
virt-ls --format=raw -a disk.img --format -a another.img /dir
forces raw format (no auto-detection) for "disk.img" and reverts
to auto-detection for "another.img".
If you have untrusted raw-format guest disk images, you should use this
option to specify the disk format. This avoids a possible security problem
with malicious guests (CVE-2010-3851).
- -h
- --human-readable
- Display file sizes in human-readable format.
This option only has effect in -lR output mode. See "RECURSIVE
LONG LISTING" above.
- --keys-from-stdin
- Read key or passphrase parameters from stdin. The default
is to try to read passphrases from the user by opening
"/dev/tty".
- -l
- --long
- -R
- --recursive
- Select the mode. With neither of these options,
"virt-ls" produces a simple, flat list of the files in the named
directory. See "SIMPLE LISTING".
"virt-ls -l" produces a "long listing", which shows more
detail. See "LONG LISTING".
"virt-ls -R" produces a recursive list of files starting at the
named directory. See "RECURSIVE LISTING".
"virt-ls -lR" produces a recursive long listing which can be more
easily parsed. See "RECURSIVE LONG LISTING".
- --times
- Display time fields.
This option only has effect in -lR output mode. See "RECURSIVE
LONG LISTING" above.
- --time-days
- Display time fields as days before now (negative if in the
future).
Note that 0 in output means "up to 1 day before now", or that the
age of the file is between 0 and 86399 seconds.
This option only has effect in -lR output mode. See "RECURSIVE
LONG LISTING" above.
- --time-relative
- Display time fields as seconds before now (negative if in
the future).
This option only has effect in -lR output mode. See "RECURSIVE
LONG LISTING" above.
- --time-t
- Display time fields as seconds since the Unix epoch.
This option only has effect in -lR output mode. See "RECURSIVE
LONG LISTING" above.
- --uids
- Display UID and GID fields.
This option only has effect in -lR output mode. See "RECURSIVE
LONG LISTING" above.
- -v
- --verbose
- Enable verbose messages for debugging.
- -V
- --version
- Display version number and exit.
- -x
- Enable tracing of libguestfs API calls.
OLD-STYLE COMMAND LINE ARGUMENTS¶
Previous versions of virt-ls allowed you to write either:
virt-ls disk.img [disk.img ...] /dir
or
virt-ls guestname /dir
whereas in this version you should use
-a or
-d respectively to
avoid the confusing case where a disk image might have the same name as a
guest.
For compatibility the old style is still supported.
Comma-separated values (CSV) is a deceptive format. It
seems like it
should be easy to parse, but it is definitely not easy to parse.
Myth: Just split fields at commas. Reality: This does
not work reliably.
This example has two columns:
"foo,bar",baz
Myth: Read the file one line at a time. Reality: This does
not work
reliably. This example has one row:
"foo
bar",baz
For shell scripts, use "csvtool"
(<
http://merjis.com/developers/csv> also packaged in major Linux
distributions).
For other languages, use a CSV processing library (eg. "Text::CSV" for
Perl or Python's built-in csv library).
Most spreadsheets and databases can import CSV directly.
SHELL QUOTING¶
Libvirt guest names can contain arbitrary characters, some of which have meaning
to the shell such as "#" and space. You may need to quote or escape
these characters on the command line. See the shell manual page
sh(1)
for details.
EXIT STATUS¶
This program returns 0 if successful, or non-zero if there was an error.
SEE ALSO¶
guestfs(3),
guestfish(1),
virt-cat(1),
virt-copy-out(1),
virt-tar-out(1),
Sys::Guestfs(3),
Sys::Guestfs::Lib(3),
Sys::Virt(3),
<
http://libguestfs.org/>.
AUTHOR¶
Richard W.M. Jones <
http://people.redhat.com/~rjones/>
COPYRIGHT¶
Copyright (C) 2009-2012 Red Hat Inc.
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.