libvirt is an

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized so ...

API,

daemon Daimon or Daemon (Ancient Greek: , "god", "godlike", "power", "fate") originally referred to a lesser deity or guiding spirit such as the daimons of ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology and of later Hellenistic religion and Hell ...

and management tool for managing

platform virtualization Hardware virtualization is the virtualization of computers as complete hardware platforms, certain logical abstractions of their componentry, or only the functionality required to run various operating systems. Virtualization hides the physica ...

. It can be used to manage KVM, Xen, VMware ESXi,

QEMU QEMU is a free and open-source emulator (Quick EMUlator). It emulates the machine's central processing unit, processor through dynamic binary translation and provides a set of different hardware and device models for the machine, enabling it t ...

and other virtualization technologies. These APIs are widely used in the orchestration layer of

hypervisor A hypervisor (also known as a virtual machine monitor, VMM, or virtualizer) is a type of computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines. A computer on which a hypervisor runs one or more virtual machines is called ...

s in the development of a cloud-based solution.

Internals

libvirt is a C library with bindings in other languages, notably in Python,

Perl Perl is a family of two high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it also referred to its redesigned "sister language", Perl 6, before the latter's name was offic ...

OCaml OCaml ( , formerly Objective Caml) is a general-purpose, multi-paradigm programming language Programming paradigms are a way to classify programming languages based on their features. Languages can be classified into multiple paradigms. ...

Ruby A ruby is a pinkish red to blood-red colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum ( aluminium oxide). Ruby is one of the most popular traditional jewelry gems and is very durable. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called ...

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior, of ...

(via

Node.js Node.js is an open-source server environment. Node.js is cross-platform and runs on Windows, Linux, Unix, and macOS. Node.js is a back-end JavaScript runtime environment. Node.js runs on the V8 JavaScript Engine and executes JavaScript cod ...

) and PHP. libvirt for these programming languages is composed of wrappers around another class/package called libvirtmod. libvirtmod's implementation is closely associated with its counterpart in C/C++ in syntax and functionality.

Supported Hypervisors

LXC Linux Containers (LXC) is an operating-system-level virtualization method for running multiple isolated Linux systems (containers) on a control host using a single Linux kernel. The Linux kernel provides the cgroups functionality that allows ...

– lightweight Linux container system *

OpenVZ OpenVZ (Open Virtuozzo) is an operating-system-level virtualization technology for Linux. It allows a physical server to run multiple isolated operating system instances, called containers, virtual private servers (VPSs), or virtual environmen ...

– lightweight Linux container system *

Kernel-based Virtual Machine Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a virtualization module in the Linux kernel that allows the kernel to function as a hypervisor. It was merged into the mainline Linux kernel in version 2.6.20, which was released on February 5, 2007. KV ...

(KVM) – open-source hypervisor for Linux and SmartOS * Xen – bare-metal hypervisor *

User-mode Linux User-mode Linux (UML) is an architectural port of the Linux kernel to its own system call interface, which enables multiple virtual Linux kernel-based operating systems (known as guests) to run as an application within a normal Linux system (know ...

(UML) – paravirtualized kernel *

VirtualBox Oracle VM VirtualBox (formerly Sun VirtualBox, Sun xVM VirtualBox and Innotek VirtualBox) is a type-2 hypervisor for x86 virtualization developed by Oracle Corporation. VirtualBox was originally created by Innotek GmbH, which was acquired by S ...

– hypervisor by Oracle (formerly by Sun) for Windows, Linux,

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...

, and Solaris * VMware ESXi and GSX – hypervisors for Intel hardware * VMware Workstation and Player – hypervisors for Windows and Linux *

Hyper-V Microsoft Hyper-V, codenamed Viridian, and briefly known before its release as Windows Server Virtualization, is a native hypervisor; it can create virtual machines on x86-64 systems running Windows. Starting with Windows 8, Hyper-V superseded W ...

– hypervisor for Windows by Microsoft *

PowerVM PowerVM, formerly known as Advanced Power Virtualization (APV), is a chargeable feature of IBM POWER5, POWER6, POWER7, POWER8, POWER9 and Power10 servers and is required for support of micro-partitions and other advanced features. Support is pr ...

– hypervisor by IBM for

AIX Aix or AIX may refer to: Computing * AIX, a line of IBM computer operating systems *An Alternate Index, for a Virtual Storage Access Method Key Sequenced Data Set * Athens Internet Exchange, a European Internet exchange point Places Belgiu ...

, Linux and IBM i *

Bhyve bhyve (pronounced "bee hive", formerly written as BHyVe for "BSD hypervisor") is a type-2 hypervisor initially written for FreeBSD. It can also be used on a number of illumos based distributions including SmartOS, OpenIndiana, and OmniOS. A por ...

– hypervisor for

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular ...

10+ (support added with libvirt 1.2.2)

User Interfaces

Various virtualization programs and platforms use libvirt.

Virtual Machine Manager In computing, the Red Hat Virtual Machine Manager, also known as virt-manager, is a desktop virtual machine monitor. Features Virtual Machine Manager allows users to: * create, edit, start and stop VMs * view and control each VM's cons ...

, GNOME Boxes and others provide graphical interfaces. The most popular command line interface is virsh, and higher level tools such as oVirt.

Corporate

Development of libvirt is backed by

Red Hat Red Hat, Inc. is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, with other offices worldwide. Red Hat has become a ...

, with significant contributions by other organisations and individuals. libvirt is available on most Linux distributions; remote servers are also accessible from

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancest ...

and

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

clients.

References

Books

External links

* {{Official website
Mailing lists
Free software programmed in C Free virtualization software Hardware virtualization Linux APIs Virtualization software for Linux Software that uses Meson Red Hat software