virt-v2v-open(1)

💅 virt-v2v-open — the virt-v2v-open(1) glow-up

okay so bestie, welcome to the virt-v2v-open(1) page — yes that's the man page name, we're being official for like two seconds and then we're done 💖

This little icon is a companion tool for virt-v2v(1) and virt-v2v-inspector(1), and it does exactly one gorgeous thing: it opens the input side of virt-v2v and runs a program on it. Before conversion. Main character energy for real.

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✨ NAME ✨

virt-v2v-open — open the virt-v2v input and run a program on it 🫶

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

virt-v2v-open [-i* options] guest --run 'program [--options] @@'

virt-v2v-open -i disk guest.img --run 'virt-inspector --format=raw @@'

virt-v2v-open -i disk guest.img --run 'guestfish --ro --format=raw @@ -i'

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

Virt-v2v-open is a companion tool for virt-v2v(1) and virt-v2v-inspector(1) which can be used before conversion to open the input side of virt-v2v and run a program. Iconic behaviour honestly.

Some uses for this include running virt-inspector(1) directly on the source guest to find source operating systems (to use with the virt-v2v --root option). Or running guestfish to take a look inside the source guest before conversion, which is lowkey the fun part. You can follow that by running virt-v2v-inspector(1) to estimate how much space would be needed to convert that guest, and if conversion of the guest is possible. Slay.

This manual page only documents the program options, not all of the -i* options which are the same as virt-v2v. You should read virt-v2v(1) first. fr fr, read it first 🙈

Notes:

• The source guest is always opened read-only. You will not be able to make persistent changes. Like, none. Zero. Don't even try 💀
• virt-inspector(1) can be used directly on local disk images. Nice.

🌈 Selecting the input guest 🌈

You can run virt-v2v-open with the same -i* options as virt-v2v. (Don't use any -o* options — not the vibe.) This will select the guest that you want to open.

💜 Running the program 💜

On the command line, put the program that you want to run on the source guest and any other parameters that program needs into the --run parameter. "@@" in the parameter is substituted with -a DISK ... for each source disk, in a way which is compatible with virt-inspector(1) and guestfish(1).

 virt-v2v-open [-i ...] guest \
               --run 'virt-inspector --format=raw @@ > output.xml'

 virt-v2v-open [-i ...] guest \
               --run 'guestfish --ro --format=raw @@ -i'

 virt-v2v-open [-i ...] guest \
               --run 'guestfish --ro --format=raw @@ run : list-filesystems'

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• --help — Display help. Your fave.
• -v, --verbose — Enable verbose messages for debugging. Chatty era.
• -V, --version — Display version number and exit.
• -x — Enable tracing of libguestfs API calls. Detective mode 🔍
• -i ..., -ic ..., -if ..., -io ..., -ip ..., -it ... — All of the -i* options supported by virt-v2v are also supported by virt-v2v-open. Same flags, same energy.
• --colors, --colours, --machine-readable, --machine-readable=format, -q, --quiet, --wrap — These options work in the same way as the equivalent virt-v2v options.
• --run COMMAND — The command that you want to run on the source guest. "@@" in the command is substituted with a list of -a DISK options that is compatible with virt-inspector and guestfish. This is the whole point of the tool tbh 👑

🍓 FILES 🍓

Files used are the same as for virt-v2v. See "FILES" in virt-v2v(1).

🧚 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES 🧚

Environment variables used are the same as for virt-v2v. See "ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES" in virt-v2v(1).

⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

virt-v2v(1), virt-p2v(1), virt-inspector(1), virt-v2v-inspector(1), guestfs(3), guestfish(1), qemu-img(1), nbdkit(1), http://libguestfs.org/.

👑 AUTHORS 👑

Matthew Booth

Cédric Bosdonnat

Laszlo Ersek

Tomáš Golembiovský

Shahar Havivi

Richard W.M. Jones

Roman Kagan

Mike Latimer

Nir Soffer

Pino Toscano

Xiaodai Wang

Ming Xie

Tingting Zheng

💖 COPYRIGHT 💖

Copyright (C) 2009-2025 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.

🐛 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. Please don't summarise it, the whole raw thing, periodt 🙏

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ngl if you got this far you're officially a libguestfs girlie now. go open some guests read-only and be responsible about it 💅

okay bye bestie, this was virt-v2v-2.13.8, dated 2026-10-05 — mwah 🫶✨