Signed-off-by: Peter Krempa <pkrempa@redhat.com> Reviewed-by: Andrea Bolognani <abologna@redhat.com> Reviewed-by: Daniel P. Berrangé <berrange@redhat.com>
8.0 KiB
libvirtd
libvirt management daemon
- Manual section
8
- Manual group
Virtualization Support
SYNOPSIS
libvirtd
[OPTION]...
DESCRIPTION
The libvirtd
program is the server side daemon component of the libvirt virtualization management system.
This daemon runs on host servers and performs required management tasks for virtualized guests. This includes activities such as starting, stopping and migrating guests between host servers, configuring and manipulating networking, and managing storage for use by guests.
The libvirt client libraries and utilities connect to this daemon to issue tasks and collect information about the configuration and resources of the host system and guests.
By default, the libvirtd
daemon listens for requests on a local Unix domain socket. Using the -l
| --listen
command line option, the libvirtd
daemon can be instructed to additionally listen on a TCP/IP socket. The TCP/IP socket to use is defined in the libvirtd
configuration file.
Restarting libvirtd
does not impact running guests. Guests continue to operate and will be picked up automatically if their XML configuration has been defined. Any guests whose XML configuration has not been defined will be lost from the configuration.
SYSTEM SOCKET ACTIVATION
The libvirtd
daemon is capable of starting in two modes.
In the traditional mode, it will create and listen on UNIX sockets itself. If the --listen
parameter is given, it will also listen on TCP/IP socket(s), according to the listen_tcp
and listen_tls
options in /etc/libvirt/libvirtd.conf
In socket activation mode, it will rely on systemd to create and listen on the UNIX, and optionally TCP/IP, sockets and pass them as pre-opened file descriptors. In this mode, it is not permitted to pass the --listen
parameter, and most of the socket related config options in /etc/libvirt/libvirtd.conf
will no longer have any effect. To enable TCP or TLS sockets use either
$ systemctl start libvirtd-tls.socket
Or
$ systemctl start libvirtd-tcp.socket
Socket activation mode is generally the default when running on a host OS that uses systemd. To revert to the traditional mode, all the socket unit files must be masked:
$ systemctl mask libvirtd.socket libvirtd-ro.socket \
libvirtd-admin.socket libvirtd-tls.socket libvirtd-tcp.socket
On top of that make sure that the --timeout argument is not used for the daemon since it would not be started upon any later connection.
If using libvirt-guests service then the ordering for that service needs to be adapted so that it is ordered after the service unit instead of the socket unit. Since dependencies and ordering cannot be changed with drop-in overrides, the whole libvirt-guests unit file needs to be changed. In order to preserve such change copy the installed /usr/lib/systemd/system/libvirt-guests.service
to /etc/systemd/system/libvirt-guests.service
and make the change there, specifically make sure the After=
ordering mentions libvirtd.service
and not libvirtd.socket
:
[Unit]
After=libvirtd.service
OPTIONS
-h
, --help
Display command line help usage then exit.
-d
, --daemon
Run as a daemon & write PID file.
-f
, --config *FILE*
Use this configuration file, overriding the default value.
-l
, --listen
Listen for TCP/IP connections. This should not be set if using systemd socket activation. Instead activate the libvirtd-tls.socket
or libvirtd-tcp.socket
unit files.
-p
, --pid-file *FILE*
Use this name for the PID file, overriding the default value.
-t
, --timeout *SECONDS*
Exit after timeout period (in seconds), provided there are neither any client connections nor any running domains.
-v
, --verbose
Enable output of verbose messages.
--version
Display version information then exit.
SIGNALS
On receipt of SIGHUP
libvirtd
will reload its configuration.
FILES
When run as root
@SYSCONFDIR@/libvirt/libvirtd.conf
The default configuration file used by libvirtd
, unless overridden on the command line using the -f
| --config
option.
Depending on what driver is installed, then the following files are also read:
@SYSCONFDIR@/libvirt/qemu.conf
for the QEMU driver@SYSCONFDIR@/libvirt/lxc.conf
for the LXC driver@SYSCONFDIR@/libvirt/libxl.conf
for the libxl driver
These files contain various knobs and default values for virtual machines created within their respective drivers, and offer a way to override the built in defaults, for instance (but not limited to): paths to various supplementary binaries, TLS certificates location, graphical consoles configuration and others. Location of neither of these files can be overridden by any command line switch.
@RUNSTATEDIR@/libvirt/libvirt-sock
@RUNSTATEDIR@/libvirt/libvirt-sock-ro
The sockets libvirtd
will use.
@SYSCONFDIR@/pki/CA/cacert.pem
The TLS Certificate Authority certificate libvirtd
will use.
@SYSCONFDIR@/pki/libvirt/servercert.pem
The TLS Server certificate libvirtd
will use.
@SYSCONFDIR@/pki/libvirt/private/serverkey.pem
The TLS Server private key libvirtd
will use.
@RUNSTATEDIR@/libvirtd.pid
The PID file to use, unless overridden by the -p
| --pid-file
option.
When run as non-root
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/libvirt/libvirtd.conf
The default configuration file used by libvirtd
, unless overridden on the command line using the -f
|--config
option.
If QEMU driver is installed, then the following file is also read:
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/libvirt/qemu.conf
If the file exists, it can contain various knobs and default values for virtual machines created within QEMU driver, and offers a way to override the built in defaults, for instance (but not limited to): paths to various supplementary binaries, TLS certificates location, graphical consoles configuration and others. Location of this file can't be overridden by any command line switch.
$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/libvirt/libvirt-sock
The socket libvirtd
will use.
$HOME/.pki/libvirt/cacert.pem
The TLS Certificate Authority certificate libvirtd
will use.
$HOME/.pki/libvirt/servercert.pem
The TLS Server certificate libvirtd
will use.
$HOME/.pki/libvirt/serverkey.pem
The TLS Server private key libvirtd
will use.
$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/libvirt/libvirtd.pid
The PID file to use, unless overridden by the -p
|--pid-file
option.
If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME
is not set in your environment, libvirtd
will use $HOME/.config
If $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR
is not set in your environment, libvirtd
will use $HOME/.cache
EXAMPLES
To retrieve the version of libvirtd
:
# libvirtd --version
libvirtd (libvirt) @VERSION@
To start libvirtd
, instructing it to daemonize and create a PID file:
# libvirtd -d
# ls -la @RUNSTATEDIR@/libvirtd.pid
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6 Jul 9 02:40 @RUNSTATEDIR@/libvirtd.pid
BUGS
Please report all bugs you discover. This should be done via either:
the mailing list
the bug tracker
Alternatively, you may report bugs to your software distributor / vendor.
AUTHORS
Please refer to the AUTHORS file distributed with libvirt.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2006-2012 Red Hat, Inc., and the authors listed in the libvirt AUTHORS file.
LICENSE
libvirtd
is distributed under the terms of the GNU LGPL v2.1+. This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
SEE ALSO
virsh(1), virt-install(1), virt-xml-validate(1), virt-top(1), virt-df(1), https://libvirt.org/