New tool: virt-customize

The final big feature of libguestfs 1.26 has arrived. Virt-customize is the customization bits from virt-builder, in a separate program. This lets you take any virtual machine and install packages, edit configuration files, run scripts, set passwords and so on.

One of the most requested features for virt-builder is the ability to customize templates while keeping a shared backing file, and virt-customize lets you do this.

Here’s how to use virt-customize:

$ virt-customize -a fedora-20.img \
    --update --install gcc
[   0.0] Examining the guest ...
[  37.0] Setting a random seed
[  37.0] Updating core packages
[ 238.0] Installing packages: gcc

virt-inspector has a way to list out the packages installed in a virtual machine disk image, and we can use it to show that gcc was installed:

$ virt-inspector -a fedora-20.img |
    xmlstarlet sel -t -c '//application[name="gcc"]'
<application>
        <name>gcc</name>
        <version>4.8.2</version>
        <release>7.fc20</release>
        <arch>x86_64</arch>
</application>

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