When starting a domain without a CPU model specified in the domain XML, QEMU will choose a default one. Which is fine unless the domain gets migrated to another host because libvirt doesn't perform any CPU ABI checks and the virtual CPU provided by QEMU on the destination host can differ from the one on the source host. With QEMU 4.2.0 we can probe for the default CPU model used by QEMU for a particular machine type and store it in the domain XML. This way the chosen CPU model is more visible to users and libvirt will make sure the guest will see the exact same CPU after migration. Architecture specific notes - aarch64: We only set the default CPU for TCG domains as KVM requires explicit "-cpu host" to work. - ppc64: The default CPU for KVM is "host" thanks to some hacks in QEMU, we will translate the default model to the model corresponding to the host CPU ("POWER8" on a Power8 host, "POWER9" on Power9 host, etc.). This is not a problem as the corresponding CPU model is in fact an alias for "host". This is probably not ideal, but it's not wrong and the default virtual CPU configured by libvirt is the same QEMU would use. TCG uses various CPU models depending on machine type and its version. - s390x: The default CPU for KVM is "host" while TCG defaults to "qemu". - x86_64: The default CPU model (qemu64) is not runnable on any host with KVM, but QEMU just disables unavailable features and starts happily. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1598151 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1598162 Signed-off-by: Jiri Denemark <jdenemar@redhat.com> Reviewed-by: Ján Tomko <jtomko@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 2.0 (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, however, we mandate to have the build directory different than the source directory. For example, to build in a manner that is suitable for installing as root, use:
$ mkdir build && cd build
$ ../configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var
$ make
$ sudo make install
While to build & install as an unprivileged user
$ mkdir build && cd build
$ ../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: