Description of problem: (Reported by Todd Mummert for an OpenSUSE guest) Take an existing Linux guest of any type, and create an empty /etc/HOSTNAME file. The following sequence of commands will do this non-destructively: $ qemu-img create -f qcow2 -b /dev/vg_pin/F16x64 no-hostname.img Formatting 'no-hostname.img', fmt=qcow2 size=21474836480 backing_file='/dev/vg_pin/F16x64' encryption=off cluster_size=65536 $ guestfish -a no-hostname.img -i touch /etc/HOSTNAME Then inspect the guest: $ virt-inspector -a no-hostname.img libguestfs: error: /etc/HOSTNAME: file is empty virt-inspector: no operating system could be detected inside this disk image. This may be because the file is not a disk image, or is not a virtual machine image, or because the OS type is not understood by libguestfs. NOTE for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 users: for Windows guest support you must install the separate libguestfs-winsupport package. If you feel this is an error, please file a bug report including as much information about the disk image as possible. Clearly inspection should not completely fail if this file is empty. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): libguestfs 1.18.0 How reproducible: 100% Steps to Reproduce: See above.
Comprehensively fixed upstream in: cffb7fefc88a317f957785f6448fb24183c8c629 f00066d22b11bf40d0272f68565a2a27fea15627