4c10c38275
If you use the VDDK library to access virtual machines remotely, you
really need to know the Managed Object Reference ("moref") of the VM.
This must be passed each time you connect to the API.
For example nbdkit's VDDK plugin requires a moref to be passed to
mount up a VM's disk remotely:
nbdkit vddk user=root password=+/tmp/rootpw \
server=esxi.example.com thumbprint=xx:xx:xx:... \
vm=moref=2 \
file="[datastore1] Fedora/Fedora.vmdk"
Getting the moref is a huge pain. To get some idea of what it is, why
it is needed, and how much trouble it is to get it, see:
https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2012/02/uniquely-identifying-virtual-machines-in-vsphere-and-vcloud-part-1-overview.html
https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2012/02/uniquely-identifying-virtual-machines-in-vsphere-and-vcloud-part-2-technical.html
However the moref is available conveniently in the internals of the
libvirt VMX driver. This patch exposes it as a custom XML element
using the same "vmware:" namespace which was previously used for the
datacenterpath (see libvirt commit 636a99058758a044).
It appears in the XML like this:
<domain type='vmware' xmlns:vmware='http://libvirt.org/schemas/domain/vmware/1.0'>
<name>Fedora</name>
...
<vmware:datacenterpath>ha-datacenter</vmware:datacenterpath>
<vmware:moref>2</vmware:moref>
</domain>
Note that the moref can appear as either a simple ID (for esx://
connections) or as a "vm-<ID>" (for vpx:// connections). It should be
treated by users as an opaque string.
Signed-off-by: Richard W.M. Jones <rjones@redhat.com>
Libvirt API for virtualization
Libvirt provides a portable, long term stable C API for managing the virtualization technologies provided by many operating systems. It includes support for QEMU, KVM, Xen, LXC, bhyve, Virtuozzo, VMware vCenter and ESX, VMware Desktop, Hyper-V, VirtualBox and the POWER Hypervisor.
For some of these hypervisors, it provides a stateful management daemon which runs on the virtualization host allowing access to the API both by non-privileged local users and remote users.
Layered packages provide bindings of the libvirt C API into other languages including Python, Perl, PHP, Go, Java, OCaml, as well as mappings into object systems such as GObject, CIM and SNMP.
Further information about the libvirt project can be found on the website:
License
The libvirt C API is distributed under the terms of GNU Lesser General
Public License, version 2.1 (or later). Some parts of the code that are
not part of the C library may have the more restrictive GNU General
Public License, version 2.1 (or later). See the files COPYING.LESSER
and COPYING for full license terms & conditions.
Installation
Libvirt uses the GNU Autotools build system, so in general can be built and installed with the usual commands. For example, to build in a manner that is suitable for installing as root, use:
$ ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var
$ make
$ sudo make install
While to build & install as an unprivileged user
$ ./configure --prefix=$HOME/usr
$ make
$ make install
The libvirt code relies on a large number of 3rd party libraries. These will
be detected during execution of the configure script and a summary printed
which lists any missing (optional) dependencies.
Contributing
The libvirt project welcomes contributions in many ways. For most components the best way to contribute is to send patches to the primary development mailing list. Further guidance on this can be found on the website:
https://libvirt.org/contribute.html
Contact
The libvirt project has two primary mailing lists:
- libvirt-users@redhat.com (for user discussions)
- libvir-list@redhat.com (for development only)
Further details on contacting the project are available on the website: