2005-12-07 09:33:00 +00:00
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
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2008-04-25 16:23:51 +00:00
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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
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2008-04-23 17:08:31 +00:00
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
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This file is autogenerated from intro.html.in
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Do not edit this file. Changes will be lost.
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<head>
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<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="main.css" />
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<link rel="SHORTCUT ICON" href="32favicon.png" />
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<title>libvirt: Architecture</title>
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<meta name="description" content="libvirt, virtualization, virtualization API" />
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</head>
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<body>
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<div id="headerLogo"></div>
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<div id="headerSearch">
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2008-04-23 17:08:31 +00:00
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<div id="body">
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2008-04-25 16:23:51 +00:00
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<div id="menu">
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<ul class="l0"><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Front page of the libvirt website" class="inactive" href="index.html">Home</a>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Details of new features and bugs fixed in each release" class="inactive" href="news.html">News</a>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Get the latest source releases, binary builds and get access to the source repository" class="inactive" href="downloads.html">Downloads</a>
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<div>
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<a title="Information for users, administrators and developers" class="active" href="docs.html">Documentation</a>
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<ul class="l1"><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Information about deploying and using libvirt" class="inactive" href="deployment.html">Deployment</a>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<span class="active">Architecture</span>
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<ul class="l2"><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Managing virtual machines" class="inactive" href="archdomain.html">Domains</a>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Providing isolated networks and NAT based network connectivity" class="inactive" href="archnetwork.html">Network</a>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Managing storage pools and volumes" class="inactive" href="archstorage.html">Storage</a>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Enumerating host node devices" class="inactive" href="archnode.html">Node Devices</a>
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</div>
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</li></ul>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Description of the XML formats used in libvirt" class="inactive" href="format.html">XML format</a>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Hypervisor specific driver information" class="inactive" href="drivers.html">Drivers</a>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Reference manual for the C public API" class="inactive" href="html/index.html">API reference</a>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Bindings of the libvirt API for other languages" class="inactive" href="bindings.html">Language bindings</a>
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</div>
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</li></ul>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="User contributed content" class="inactive" href="http://wiki.libvirt.org">Wiki</a>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Frequently asked questions" class="inactive" href="FAQ.html">FAQ</a>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="How and where to report bugs and request features" class="inactive" href="bugs.html">Bug reports</a>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="How to contact the developers via email and IRC" class="inactive" href="contact.html">Contact</a>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Miscellaneous links of interest related to libvirt" class="inactive" href="relatedlinks.html">Related Links</a>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Overview of all content on the website" class="inactive" href="sitemap.html">Sitemap</a>
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</div>
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</li></ul>
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</div>
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2008-04-23 17:08:31 +00:00
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<div id="content">
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<h1>Architecture</h1>
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<p>Libvirt is a C toolkit to interact with the virtualization capabilities of
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recent versions of Linux (and other OSes), but libvirt won't try to provide
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all possible interfaces for interacting with the virtualization features.</p>
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<p>To avoid ambiguity about the terms used here here are the definitions for
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some of the specific concepts used in libvirt documentation:</p>
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<ul><li>a <strong>node</strong> is a single physical machine</li><li>an <strong>hypervisor</strong> is a layer of software allowing to
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virtualize a node in a set of virtual machines with possibly different
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configurations than the node itself</li><li>a <strong>domain</strong> is an instance of an operating system running
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on a virtualized machine provided by the hypervisor</li></ul>
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<p class="image">
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<img alt="Hypervisor and domains running on a node" src="node.gif" /></p>
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<p>Now we can define the goal of libvirt: to provide the lowest possible
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generic and stable layer to manage domains on a node.</p>
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<p>This implies the following:</p>
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<ul><li>the API should not be targeted to a single virtualization environment
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2007-04-27 15:39:20 +00:00
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though Xen is the current default, which also means that some very
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specific capabilities which are not generic enough may not be provided as
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libvirt APIs</li><li>the API should allow to do efficiently and cleanly all the operations
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needed to manage domains on a node</li><li>the API will not try to provide hight level multi-nodes management
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features like load balancing, though they could be implemented on top of
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libvirt</li><li>stability of the API is a big concern, libvirt should isolate
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applications from the frequent changes expected at the lower level of the
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virtualization framework</li></ul>
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<p>So libvirt should be a building block for higher level management tools
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and for applications focusing on virtualization of a single node (the only
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exception being domain migration between node capabilities which may need to
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be added at the libvirt level). Where possible libvirt should be extendable
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to be able to provide the same API for remote nodes, however this is not the
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case at the moment, the code currently handle only local node accesses
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(extension for remote access support is being worked on, see <a href="bugs.html">the mailing list</a> discussions about it).</p>
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</div>
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</div>
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<div id="footer">
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<div id="projects">
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<dl id="p1"><dt>
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<a href="http://augeas.net/">Augeas</a>
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</dt><dd>
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<span>A configuration editing tool and API</span>
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</dd><dt>
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<a href="http://libvirt.org/">libvirt</a>
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</dt><dd>
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<span>The open source virtualization API</span>
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</dd></dl>
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<dl id="p2"><dt>
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<a href="http://cobbler.et.redhat.com/">Cobbler</a>
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</dt><dd>
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<span>OS provisioning and profile management</span>
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</dd><dt>
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<a href="http://ovirt.org/">oVirt</a>
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</dt><dd>
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<span>Virtualization management across the data center</span>
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</dd></dl>
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<dl id="p3"><dt>
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<a href="http://freeipa.org/">FreeIPA</a>
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</dt><dd>
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<span>Identity, policy and audit management</span>
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</dd><dt>
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<a href="http://virt-manager.org/">Virtual Machine Manager</a>
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</dt><dd>
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<span>Virtualization management from the desktop</span>
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</dd></dl>
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</div>
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</div>
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</body>
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