de3289e2b5
There was one attempt a year ago done by me to drop HAL [1] but it was never resolved. There was another time when Dan suggested to drop HAL driver [2] but it was decided to keep it around in case device assignment will be implemented for FreeBSD and the fact that virt-manager uses node device driver [3]. I checked git history and code and it doesn't look like bhyve supports device assignment so from that POV it should not block removing HAL. The argument about virt-manager is not strong as well because libvirt installed from FreeBSD packages doesn't have HAL support so it will not affect these users as well [4]. The only users affected by this change would be the ones compiling libvirt from GIT on FreeBSD. I looked into alternatives and there is libudev-devd package on FreeBSD but unfortunately it doesn't work as it doesn't list any devices when used with libvirt. It provides libudev APIs using devd. I also looked into devd directly and it provides some APIs but there are no APIs for device monitoring and events so that would have to be somehow done by libvirt. Main motivation for dropping HAL support is to replace libdbus with GLib dbus implementation and it cannot be done with HAL driver present in libvirt because HAL APIs heavily depends on symbols provided by libdbus. [1] <https://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2019-May/msg00203.html> [2] <https://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2016-April/msg00992.html> [3] <https://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2016-April/msg00994.html> [4] <https://svnweb.freebsd.org/ports/head/devel/libvirt/Makefile?view=markup> Signed-off-by: Pavel Hrdina <phrdina@redhat.com> Reviewed-by: Michal Privoznik <mprivozn@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
Instructions on building and installing libvirt can be found on the website:
https://libvirt.org/compiling.html
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: