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* docs/Makefile.am docs/api.html docs/api.html.in docs/archdomain.html docs/archnetwork.html docs/archnode.html docs/archstorage.html docs/goals.html docs/intro.html docs/libvirt-daemon-arch.fig docs/libvirt-daemon-arch.png docs/libvirt-driver-arch.fig docs/libvirt-driver-arch.png docs/libvirt-object-model.fig docs/libvirt-object-model.png docs/page.xsl docs/sitemap.html docs/sitemap.html.in: adding a new api page, extending the stylesheet to allow references and including images from Dan Berrange daniel
162 lines
8.3 KiB
HTML
162 lines
8.3 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
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<!--
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This file is autogenerated from goals.html.in
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Do not edit this file. Changes will be lost.
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-->
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<head>
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<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
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<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="main.css" />
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<link rel="SHORTCUT ICON" href="32favicon.png" />
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<title>libvirt: Terminology and goals</title>
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<meta name="description" content="libvirt, virtualization, virtualization API" />
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</head>
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<body>
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<div id="header">
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<div id="headerLogo"></div>
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<div id="headerSearch">
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<form action="search.php" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded" method="get"><div>
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<input id="query" name="query" type="text" size="12" value="" />
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<input id="submit" name="submit" type="submit" value="Search" />
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</div></form>
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</div>
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</div>
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<div id="body">
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<div id="menu">
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<ul class="l0"><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Front page of the libvirt website" class="inactive" href="index.html">Home</a>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Details of new features and bugs fixed in each release" class="inactive" href="news.html">News</a>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Get the latest source releases, binary builds and get access to the source repository" class="inactive" href="downloads.html">Downloads</a>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Information for users, administrators and developers" class="active" href="docs.html">Documentation</a>
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<ul class="l1"><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Information about deploying and using libvirt" class="inactive" href="deployment.html">Deployment</a>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Overview of the logical subsystems in the libvirt API" class="active" href="intro.html">Architecture</a>
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<ul class="l2"><li>
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<div>
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<span class="active">Goals</span>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="The libvirt API concepts" class="inactive" href="api.html">API concepts</a>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Managing virtual machines" class="inactive" href="archdomain.html">Domains</a>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Providing isolated networks and NAT based network connectivity" class="inactive" href="archnetwork.html">Network</a>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Managing storage pools and volumes" class="inactive" href="archstorage.html">Storage</a>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Enumerating host node devices" class="inactive" href="archnode.html">Node Devices</a>
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</div>
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</li></ul>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Description of the XML formats used in libvirt" class="inactive" href="format.html">XML format</a>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Hypervisor specific driver information" class="inactive" href="drivers.html">Drivers</a>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Reference manual for the C public API" class="inactive" href="html/index.html">API reference</a>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Bindings of the libvirt API for other languages" class="inactive" href="bindings.html">Language bindings</a>
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</div>
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</li></ul>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="User contributed content" class="inactive" href="http://wiki.libvirt.org">Wiki</a>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Frequently asked questions" class="inactive" href="FAQ.html">FAQ</a>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="How and where to report bugs and request features" class="inactive" href="bugs.html">Bug reports</a>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="How to contact the developers via email and IRC" class="inactive" href="contact.html">Contact</a>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Miscellaneous links of interest related to libvirt" class="inactive" href="relatedlinks.html">Related Links</a>
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</div>
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</li><li>
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<div>
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<a title="Overview of all content on the website" class="inactive" href="sitemap.html">Sitemap</a>
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</div>
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</li></ul>
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</div>
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<div id="content">
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<h1>Terminology and goals</h1>
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<p>To avoid ambiguity about the terms used, here are the definitions
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for some of the specific concepts used in libvirt documentation:</p>
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<ul><li>a <strong>node</strong> is a single physical machine</li><li>an <strong>hypervisor</strong> is a layer of software allowing to
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virtualize a node in a set of virtual machines with possibly different
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configurations than the node itself</li><li>a <strong>domain</strong> is an instance of an operating system
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(or subsystem in the case of container virtualization) running on a
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virtualized machine provided by the hypervisor</li></ul>
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<p class="image">
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<img alt="Hypervisor and domains running on a node" src="node.gif" /></p>
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<p>Now we can define the goal of libvirt: to provide a common generic
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and stable layer to securely manage domains on a node. The node may be
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distant and libvirt should provide all APIs needed to provision, create,
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modify, monitor, control, migrate and stop the domains, within the limits
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of the support of the hypervisor for those operations. Multiple mode may
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be accessed with libvirt simultaneously but the APIs are limited to
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single node operations.</p>
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<p>This implies the following sub-goals:</p>
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<ul><li>the API should not be targeted to a single virtualization environment
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which also means that some very specific capabilities which are not generic
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enough may not be provided as libvirt APIs</li><li>the API should allow to do efficiently and cleanly all the operations
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needed to manage domains on a node</li><li>the API will not try to provide high level virtualization policies or
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multi-nodes management features like load balancing, but the API should be
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sufficient so they can be implemented on top of libvirt</li><li>stability of the API is a big concern, libvirt should isolate
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applications from the frequent changes expected at the lower level of the
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virtualization framework</li><li>the node being managed may be on a different physical machine than
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the management program using libvirt, to this effect libvirt supports
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remote access, but should only do so by using secure protocols.</li><li>libvirt will provide APIs to enumerate, monitor and use the resources
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available on the managed node, including CPUs, memory, storage, networking,
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and NUMA partitions.</li></ul>
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<p>So libvirt is intended to be a building block for higher level
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management tools and for applications focusing on virtualization of a
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single node (the only exception being domain migration between node
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capabilities which involves more than one node).</p>
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</div>
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</div>
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<div id="footer">
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<p id="sponsor">
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Sponsored by:<br /><a href="http://et.redhat.com/"><img src="et.png" alt="Project sponsored by Red Hat Emerging Technology" /></a></p>
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</div>
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</body>
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</html>
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