88446e07b2
The driver URI scheme:
"$drivername:///embed?root=/some/path"
enables a new way to use the drivers by embedding them directly in the
calling process. To use this the process must have a thread running the
libvirt event loop. This URI will then cause libvirt to dynamically load
the driver module and call its global initialization function. This
syntax is applicable to any driver, but only those will have been
modified to support a custom root directory and embed URI path will
successfully open.
The application can now make normal libvirt API calls which are all
serviced in-process with no RPC layer involved.
It is required to specify an explicit root directory, and locks will be
acquired on this directory to avoid conflicting with another app that
might accidentally pick the same directory.
Use of '/' is not explicitly forbidden, but note that the file layout
used underneath the embedded driver root does not match the file
layout used by system/session mode drivers. So this cannot be used as
a backdoor to interact with, or fake, the system/session mode drivers.
Libvirt will create arbitrary files underneath this root directory. The
root directory can be kept untouched across connection open attempts if
the application needs persistence. The application is responsible for
purging everything underneath this root directory when finally no longer
required.
Even when a virt driver is used in embedded mode, it is still possible
for it to in turn use functionality that calls out to other secondary
drivers in libvirtd. For example an embedded instance of QEMU can open
the network, secret or storage drivers in the system libvirtd.
That said, the application would typically want to at least open an
embedded secret driver ("secret:///embed?root=/some/path"). Note that
multiple different embedded drivers can use the same root prefix and
co-operate just as they would inside a normal libvirtd daemon.
A key thing to note is that for this to work, the application that links
to libvirt *MUST* be built with -Wl,--export-dynamic to ensure that
symbols from libvirt.so are exported & thus available to the dynamically
loaded driver module. If libvirt.so itself was dynamically loaded then
RTLD_GLOBAL must be passed to dlopen().
Reviewed-by: Michal Privoznik <mprivozn@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Daniel P. Berrangé <berrange@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: