Provided by: virt-p2v_1.42.4-1build1_amd64 
NAME
p2v-building - How to build virt-p2v from source
DESCRIPTION
This manual page describes how to build virt-p2v from source.
The main steps are:
• Install the requirements.
• Build, either from the git repository or from a tarball.
• Run the tests.
• Run the tools from the source directory, or install.
REQUIREMENTS
Full list of requirements
qemu-img ≥ 2.2.0
Required.
Gcc or Clang
Required. We use "__attribute__((cleanup))" which is a GCC extension also supported by Clang.
Perl
Required. Various build steps and tests are written in Perl. Perl is not needed at runtime.
Perl "Pod::Man"
Perl "Pod::Simple"
Required. Part of Perl core.
autoconf
automake
Required if compiling from git. Optional if compiling from tarball.
Perl-compatible Regular Expressions (PCRE2) library
Required.
libxml2
Required.
xz Required.
nbdkit
Optional.
virt-p2v(1) requires nbdkit, but it only needs to be present on the virt-p2v ISO, it does not need to
be installed at compile time.
Glib ≥ 2.56
Required.
Gtk ≥ 3.22
Required.
D-Bus
Optional.
If the D-Bus low level C API is available, virt-p2v can send a D-Bus message to logind to inhibit
power saving (sleep, suspend, etc) during P2V conversions.
If this API is not available at build time, then very long conversions might be interrupted if the
physical machine goes to sleep.
valgrind
Optional. For testing memory problems.
bash-completion
Optional. For tab-completion of commands in bash.
BUILDING FROM GIT
You will need to install additional dependencies "autoconf", and "automake" when building from git.
git clone https://github.com/libguestfs/virt-p2v
cd virt-p2v
autoreconf -i
./configure
make
BUILDING FROM TARBALLS
Tarballs are downloaded from http://download.libguestfs.org/. Stable tarballs are signed with the GnuPG
key for "rich@annexia.org", see https://pgp.mit.edu/pks/lookup?op=vindex&search=0x91738F73E1B768A0. The
fingerprint is "F777 4FB1 AD07 4A7E 8C87 67EA 9173 8F73 E1B7 68A0".
Download and unpack the tarball.
cd virt-p2v-1.xx.yy
./configure
make
RUNNING THE TESTS
DO NOT run the tests as root! Virt-p2v can be built and tested as non-root. Running the tests as root
could even be dangerous, don't do it.
To run the tests, do:
make check
There are many more tests you can run. See p2v-hacking(1) for details.
INSTALLING
DO NOT use "make install"! You'll end up with conflicting versions of virt-p2v installed, and this
causes constant headaches for users. See the next section for how to use the ./run script instead.
Distro packagers can use:
make DESTDIR=[temp-build-dir] install
THE ./run SCRIPT
You can test virt-p2v(1) and the other tools without needing to install them by using the ./run script in
the top directory. This script works by setting several environment variables.
For example:
./run virt-p2v-make-disk [usual virt-p2v-make-disk args ...]
The ./run script adds every virt-p2v binary to the $PATH, so the above example run virt-p2v-make-disk
from the build directory (not the globally installed virt-p2v-make-disk if there is one).
SELECTED ./configure SETTINGS
There are many "./configure" options. Use:
./configure --help
to list them all. This section covers some of the more important ones.
--enable-werror
This turns compiler warnings into errors (ie. "-Werror"). Use this for development, especially when
submitting patches. It should generally not be used for production or distro builds.
--with-extra="distroname=version,..."
--with-extra="local"
This option appends a text to the version of the virt-p2v tools. It is a free text field, but a good
idea is to encode a comma-separated list of facts such as the distro name and version, and anything
else that may help with debugging problems raised by users.
For custom and/or local builds, this can be set to "local" to indicate this is not a distro build.
USING CLANG (LLVM) INSTEAD OF GCC
export CC=clang
./configure
make
BUILDING i686 32 BIT VIRT-P2V
(This section only applies on the x86-64 architecture.)
Building a 32 bit virt-p2v (i686) binary improves compatibility with older hardware. See
virt-p2v-make-disk(1) for details. Although virt-p2v is a simple Gtk application, it is not especially
easy to build just virt-p2v as a 32 bit application on a 64 bit host. Usually the simplest way is to use
a 32 bit chroot or even a 32 bit virtual machine to build virt-p2v.
On Fedora you can use the mock(1) tool. For example:
fedpkg mockbuild --root fedora-23-i386
This will result in a virt-v2v-*.i686.rpm file which can be unpacked to extract the 32 bit virt-p2v
binary.
The binary may be compressed to either virt-p2v.i686.xz, or $libdir/virt-p2v/virt-p2v.i686.xz or
$VIRT_P2V_DATA_DIR/virt-p2v.i686.xz as appropriate. This enables the virt-p2v-make-disk(1) --arch
option.
SEE ALSO
p2v-hacking(1), p2v-release-notes(1), http://libguestfs.org/.
AUTHORS
Richard W.M. Jones ("rjones at redhat dot com")
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2009-2019 Red Hat Inc.
LICENSE
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser
General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This library 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 Lesser General
Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License along with this program. If
not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
BUGS
To get a list of bugs against libguestfs (which include virt-p2v), 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 virt-p2v.
• Where you got virt-p2v (eg. which Linux distro, compiled from source, etc)
• Describe the bug accurately and give a way to reproduce it.
virt-p2v-1.42.4 2025-05-20 p2v-building(1)