Introduce a few new public APIs related to incremental backups. This builds on the previous notion of a checkpoint (without an existing checkpoint, the new API is a full backup, differing from virDomainBlockCopy in the point of time chosen and in operation on multiple disks at once); and also allows creation of a new checkpoint at the same time as starting the backup (after all, an incremental backup is only useful if it covers the state since the previous backup). A backup job also affects filtering a listing of domains, as well as adding event reporting for signaling when a push model backup completes (where the hypervisor creates the backup); note that the pull model does not have an event (starting the backup lets a third party access the data, and only the third party knows when it is finished). The full list of new APIs: virDomainBackupBegin; virDomainBackupGetXMLDesc; Signed-off-by: Eric Blake <eblake@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Peter Krempa <pkrempa@redhat.com> Reviewed-by: Daniel P. Berrangé <berrange@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: