Releases

This is the list of official releases for libvirt, along with an overview of the changes introduced by each of them.

For a more fine-grained view, use the git log.

v3.0.0 (unreleased)

• New features
  • qemu: Support QEMU group I/O throttling
    Add the capability to allow group I/O throttling via a new domain <disk> <iotune> subelement "group_name" to allow sharing I/O throttling quota between multiple drives
  • nss: Introduce libvirt-guest
    New libvirt-guest nss module that translates libvirt guest names into IP addresses
  • daemon: Add support for runtime logging settings adjustment
    Logging-related settings like log outputs and filters can now be adjusted during runtime using the admin interface without the necessity of the daemon's restart
• Improvements
  • perf: Add more perf statistics
    Add support to get the count of branch instructions executed, branch misses, bus cycles, and stalled frontend cpu cycles by applications running on the platform
• Bug fixes
  • qemu: Correct GetBlockInfo values
    For an active domain, correct the physical value provided for a raw sparse file backed storage and the allocation value provided for a qcow2 file backed storage that hasn't yet been opened on the domain

v2.5.0 (2016-12-04)

• New features
  • shmem: Add support for additional models
    The shmem device can now utilize QEMU's ivshmem-plain and ivshmem-doorbell, more modern versions of ivshmem
  • vbox: Add VirtualBox 5.1 support
  • libssh: New transport
    The new libssh transport allows one to connect to a running libvirtd via SSH, using the libssh library; for example: qemu+libssh://server/system
  • vhost-scsi: Add support scsi_host hostdev passthrough
    Add the capability to pass through a scsi_host HBA and the associated LUNs to the guest
  • qemu: Users can now enable debug logging for native gluster volumes in qemu using the "gluster_debug_level" option in qemu.conf
  • memory hotplug: Slot numbers for memory devices are now automatically allocated and thus persistent. In addition slot numbers can be specified without providing a base address, which simplifies user configuration
  • qemu: Express devices will be placed on PCIe bus by default
    For machine types that use a PCI Express root bus (e.g. x86_64/Q35 and aarch64/virt), any unaddressed PCI device that is an Express device (all virtio-1.0 devices, e1000e, nec-xhci, vfio assigned devices) will be placed on an Express controller (i.e. a pcie-root-port) instead of a legacy PCI controller (i.e. pci-bridge) with the root ports added as needed
• Improvements
  • docs: Better documentation for migration APIs and flags
  • vbox: Address thread safety issues
  • virsh: Add support for passing an alternative persistent XML to migrate command
  • vhostuser: Allow hotplug of multiqueue devices
  • NEWS: Switch to an improved format
    List user-visible changes instead of single commits for a better high-level overview of differences between libvirt releases
  • website: Modernize layout and branding
    The libvirt website looked very cluttered and outdated; it has now been completely overhauled, resulting in a design that's better organized and more pleasant to look at
• Bug fixes
  • vz: Fix migration in P2P mode
  • Forbid newline character in names of some libvirt objects
  • Fix compilation on macOS

Releases earlier than v2.5.0 detailed their changes using a different format and as such are excluded from the list above. You can read about those older release, starting from those made in 2016.