virt-copy-out(1)

📦
version 1.61.3 · 14 versions
, in centos-stream 10

💖 virt-copy-out(1) 💖

okay so bestie, welcome to the virt-copy-out page — that's the command name, and this is its manual page (section 1 of the libguestfs docs, iykyk). she's a lil shell script with main character energy and she's here to get your files OUT of a VM. let's go 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

virt-copy-out — copy files and directories out of a virtual machine disk image. literally that's her whole job and she ate 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

virt-copy-out -a disk.img /file|dir [/file|dir ...] localdir

virt-copy-out -d domain /file|dir [/file|dir ...] localdir

so you point her at a disk image with -a or at a libvirt domain with -d, then hand her one or more /file|dir paths inside the guest, and finally a localdir on your side where the goodies land 🫶

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

virt-copy-out copies files and directories out of a virtual machine disk image or a named libvirt domain. no cap, that's it. 🧚

you can give one or more filenames and directories on the command line — stack 'em up, she's not scared. directories are copied out recursively, so the whole tree comes with you. 💖

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

download the home directories from a virtual machine:

mkdir homes
virt-copy-out -d MyGuest /home homes

see how it's done?? mkdir homes to make the landing spot, then -d MyGuest says "this guest", /home says "grab that", and homes says "put it here". iconic. ✨

💀 JUST A SHELL SCRIPT WRAPPER AROUND GUESTFISH 💀

ngl bestie, this command is just a simple shell script wrapper around the guestfish(1) copy-out command. that's the whole tea. ☕

so for anything more complex than a trivial copy, you are probably better off using guestfish directly — she's the real one, this is just her cute lil front-facing cousin. 🙈

💅 OPTIONS 💅

since the shell script just passes options straight to guestfish, read guestfish(1) to see the full list of options. like, all of them. go read it, she's worth it. 📖💜

👑 SEE ALSO 👑

the whole squad fr fr 🫶🔥

💖 AUTHORS 💖

Richard W.M. Jones (rjones at redhat dot com) — the legend, the blueprint, the moment. 👑

Copyright (C) 2011-2025 Red Hat Inc.

⭐ LICENSE ⭐

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.

bestie the all-caps warranty bits are NOT a vibe check you can skip — no warranty, fr fr. read the license. 💀

🐛 BUGS 🐛

to get a list of bugs against libguestfs, use this link:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/buglist.cgi?component=libguestfs&product=Virtualization+Tools

to report a new bug against libguestfs, use this link:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/enter_bug.cgi?component=libguestfs&product=Virtualization+Tools

when reporting a bug, please supply:

  • the version of libguestfs.
  • where you got libguestfs (eg. which Linux distro, compiled from source, etc)
  • describe the bug accurately and give a way to reproduce it.
  • run libguestfs-test-tool(1) and paste the complete, unedited output into the bug report. 📋✨
the "complete, unedited" part is serious — do not trim the output, the maintainers need the whole thing. 🙏

and that's the page, bestie!! 🦋 this was virt-copy-out(1) from libguestfs-1.61.3, dated 2026-09-16 — go forth and copy responsibly, love u, bye!! 💖🎀🌸

📦 where this page comes from