=encoding utf8 =head1 NAME virt-sysprep - Reset, unconfigure or customize a virtual machine so clones can be made =head1 SYNOPSIS virt-sysprep [--options] -d domname virt-sysprep [--options] -a disk.img [-a disk.img ...] =head1 DESCRIPTION Virt-sysprep can reset or unconfigure a virtual machine so that clones can be made from it. Steps in this process include removing SSH host keys, removing persistent network MAC configuration, and removing user accounts. Virt-sysprep can also customize a virtual machine, for instance by adding SSH keys, users or logos. Each step can be enabled or disabled as required. Virt-sysprep modifies the guest or disk image I. The guest must be shut down. If you want to preserve the existing contents of the guest, I. See L below. You do I need to run virt-sysprep as root. In fact we'd generally recommend that you don't. The time you might want to run it as root is when you need root in order to access the disk image, but even in this case it would be better to change the permissions on the disk image to be writable as the non-root user running virt-sysprep. "Sysprep" stands for "system preparation" tool. The name comes from the Microsoft program C which is used to unconfigure Windows machines in preparation for cloning them. Having said that, virt-sysprep does I currently work on Microsoft Windows guests. We plan to support Windows sysprepping in a future version, and we already have code to do it. =head1 OPTIONS =over 4 =item B<--help> Display brief help. =item B<-a> file =item B<--add> file Add I which should be a disk image from a virtual machine. The format of the disk image is auto-detected. To override this and force a particular format use the I<--format> option. =item B<-c> URI =item B<--connect> URI If using libvirt, connect to the given I. If omitted, then we connect to the default libvirt hypervisor. If you specify guest block devices directly (I<-a>), then libvirt is not used at all. =item B<-d> guest =item B<--domain> guest Add all the disks from the named libvirt guest. Domain UUIDs can be used instead of names. =item B<-n> =item B<--dry-run> Perform a read-only "dry run" on the guest. This runs the sysprep operation, but throws away any changes to the disk at the end. =item B<--enable> operations Choose which sysprep operations to perform. Give a comma-separated list of operations, for example: --enable ssh-hostkeys,udev-persistent-net would enable ONLY C and C operations. If the I<--enable> option is not given, then we default to trying most sysprep operations (see I<--list-operations> to show which are enabled). Regardless of the I<--enable> option, sysprep operations are skipped for some guest types. Use I<--list-operations> to list operations supported by a particular version of virt-sysprep. See L below for a list and an explanation of each operation. =item B<--format> raw|qcow2|.. =item B<--format> auto The default for the I<-a> option is to auto-detect the format of the disk image. Using this forces the disk format for I<-a> options which follow on the command line. Using I<--format auto> switches back to auto-detection for subsequent I<-a> options. For example: virt-sysprep --format raw -a disk.img forces raw format (no auto-detection) for C. virt-sysprep --format raw -a disk.img --format auto -a another.img forces raw format (no auto-detection) for C and reverts to auto-detection for C. 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). =item B<--list-operations> List the operations supported by the virt-sysprep program. These are listed one per line, with one or more single-space-separated fields, eg: $ virt-sysprep --list-operations bash-history * Remove the bash history in the guest cron-spool * Remove user at-jobs and cron-jobs dhcp-client-state * Remove DHCP client leases dhcp-server-state * Remove DHCP server leases [etc] The first field is the operation name, which can be supplied to I<--enable>. The second field is a C<*> character if the operation is enabled by default or blank if not. Subsequent fields on the same line are the description of the operation. Before libguestfs 1.17.33 only the first (operation name) field was shown and all operations were enabled by default. =item B<-q> =item B<--quiet> Don't print log messages. To enable detailed logging of individual file operations, use I<-x>. =item B<--selinux-relabel> =item B<--no-selinux-relabel> I<--selinux-relabel> forces SELinux relabelling next time the guest boots. I<--no-selinux-relabel> disables relabelling. The default is to try to detect if SELinux relabelling is required. See L below for more details. =item B<-v> =item B<--verbose> Enable verbose messages for debugging. =item B<-V> =item B<--version> Display version number and exit. =item B<-x> Enable tracing of libguestfs API calls. __EXTRA_OPTIONS__ =back =head1 OPERATIONS If the I<--enable> option is I given, then most sysprep operations are enabled. Use C to list all operations for your virt-sysprep binary. The ones which are enabled by default are marked with a C<*> character. Regardless of the I<--enable> option, sysprep operations are skipped for some guest types. Operations can be individually enabled using the I<--enable> option. Use a comma-separated list, for example: virt-sysprep --enable=ssh-hostkeys,udev-persistent-net [etc..] Future versions of virt-sysprep may add more operations. If you are using virt-sysprep and want predictable behaviour, specify only the operations that you want to have enabled. C<*> = enabled by default when no I<--enable> option is given. __OPERATIONS__ =head1 COPYING AND CLONING Virt-sysprep can be used as part of a process of cloning guests, or to prepare a template from which guests can be cloned. There are many different ways to achieve this using the virt tools, and this section is just an introduction. A virtual machine (when switched off) consists of two parts: =over 4 =item I The configuration or description of the guest. eg. The libvirt XML (see C), the running configuration of the guest, or another external format like OVF. Some configuration items that might need to be changed: =over 4 =item * name =item * UUID =item * path to block device(s) =item * network card MAC address =back =item I One or more hard disk images, themselves containing files, directories, applications, kernels, configuration, etc. Some things inside the block devices that might need to be changed: =over 4 =item * hostname and other net configuration =item * UUID =item * SSH host keys =item * Windows unique security ID (SID) =item * Puppet registration =back =back =head2 COPYING THE BLOCK DEVICE Starting with an original guest, you probably wish to copy the guest block device and its configuration to make a template. Then once you are happy with the template, you will want to make many clones from it. virt-sysprep | v original guest --------> template ----------> \------> cloned \-----> guests \----> You can, of course, just copy the block device on the host using L or L. dd dd original guest --------> template ----------> \------> cloned \-----> guests \----> There are some smarter (and faster) ways too: snapshot template ----------> \------> cloned \-----> guests \----> You may want to run virt-sysprep twice, once to reset the guest (to make a template) and a second time to customize the guest for a specific user: virt-sysprep virt-sysprep (reset) (add user, keys, logos) | | dd v dd v original guest ----> template ---------> copied ------> custom template guest =over 4 =item * Create a snapshot using qemu-img: qemu-img create -f qcow2 -o backing_file=original snapshot.qcow The advantage is that you don't need to copy the original (very fast) and only changes are stored (less storage required). Note that writing to the backing file once you have created guests on top of it is not possible: you will corrupt the guests. =item * Create a snapshot using C. =item * Other ways to create snapshots include using filesystems-level tools (for filesystems such as btrfs). Most Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices can also create cheap snapshots from files or LUNs. =item * Get your NAS to duplicate the LUN. Most NAS devices can also duplicate LUNs very cheaply (they copy them on-demand in the background). =item * Prepare your template using L. See below. =back =head2 VIRT-CLONE A separate tool, L, can be used to duplicate the block device and/or modify the external libvirt configuration of a guest. It will reset the name, UUID and MAC address of the guest in the libvirt XML. L does not use libguestfs and cannot look inside the disk image. This was the original motivation to write virt-sysprep. =head2 SPARSIFY virt-sparsify original guest --------> template L can be used to make the cloning template smaller, making it easier to compress and/or faster to copy. Notice that since virt-sparsify also copies the image, you can use it to make the initial copy (instead of C
). =head2 RESIZE virt-resize template ----------> \------> cloned \-----> guests \----> If you want to give people cloned guests, but let them pick the size of the guest themselves (eg. depending on how much they are prepared to pay for disk space), then instead of copying the template, you can run L. Virt-resize performs a copy and resize, and thus is ideal for cloning guests from a template. =head1 FIRSTBOOT VS SCRIPT The two options I<--firstboot> and I<--script> both supply shell scripts that are run against the guest. However these two options are significantly different. I<--firstboot script> uploads the file C