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libvirt Wiki

This is the libvirt Wiki for user contributed content.

Due to frequent attacks from spammers who are able to defeat the various anti-spam measures, it has become necessary to disable new account creation.

We still welcome contributions from anyone interested in updating content. Simply send an email to the main libvirt development list asking for an account and one will be created for you with as little delay as practical. Please tell us your preferred wiki user name in the email - if you have no preferences we will create one with "ForenameSurname" style.

General project documentation

• Libvirt FAQ
• General hints and tips
• Troubleshooting Guide
• Switching over from running standalone QEMU to libvirt managed QEMU

Books

• Chirammal, Mukhedkar, et al., "Mastering KVM Virtualization", 2016, PACKT Publishing, [1]

Guest Management

Concepts

• Guest (VM) Lifecycle : Read This First - Introduces the concepts used with guests / virtual machines. Includes things like persistent vs transient domains, creating, starting, stopping domains, saving, restoring, snapshots, and secure wiping of disk images.

Virtio

• Setting up virtio

Host SCSI device

• SCSI generic device passthrough
• vhost-scsi target

NPIV

• NPIV in libvirt

Networking

Concepts

• Virtual Networking : Read This First - Introduces the concepts and ideas used in libvirts' networking for guests

Detailed networking pieces

• Libvirtd_and_dnsmasq - Additional configuration settings needed for running a global dnsmasq in addition to a libvirt controlled one
• Networking hints and tips
• OVS_and_PVLANS - Setup OpenvSwitch Flows to emulate PVLANs

Security

SSH

• How to set up access to libvirt via SSH
• How to configure PolicyKit access to libvirt through SSH

Transport Layer Security (TLS)

• In depth guide to configuring TLS in libvirt (with many pictures)
• How to set up your VNC client software to use TLS

Storage

Disk and Memory Snapshots

• Snapshot API Development

Examples of live block operations

• Live disk backup with active blockcommit
• Live merge an entire disk image chain including current active disk

Other

Images

The images in this wiki, along with their Inkscape SVG source, are on this page in one place in case you'd like to use or modify them for your own project:

• SVGImages

Debugging

In case you want to turn on debuging in libvirt follow:

• DebugLogs

For other (partially automated) debugging techniques, check

• Debugging

Getting started with libvirt development

Here is the list of small tasks that should enable you to start digging into libvirt source code base

Google Summer of Code

There is a separate page dedicated to Google Summer of Code 2019.

Also, the list for future ideas for projects can be found here Google Summer of Code Ideas.

The previous years can be found here: 2018, 2017 and 2016.

There is also a separate page for FAQ.