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Daniel P. Berrangé 88446e07b2 libvirt: support an "embed" URI path selector for opening drivers
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>
2020-01-27 11:03:49 +00:00
.ctags.d maint: Add support for .ctags.d 2019-05-31 17:54:28 +02:00
.gnulib@611869be9f gnulib: Pull in latest changes 2020-01-15 17:19:31 +01:00
build-aux syntax-check: remove deleted daemon directory from space_indent_check 2020-01-17 16:04:26 +01:00
ci ci: Fetch list of available container images dynamically 2020-01-06 16:43:46 +01:00
docs news: Update news for rng backend type builtin 2020-01-24 17:03:38 +01:00
examples src: replace verify(expr) with G_STATIC_ASSERT(expr) 2020-01-17 10:02:01 +00:00
gnulib/lib bootstrap.conf: drop gnulib tests from libvirt 2020-01-17 16:04:26 +01:00
include/libvirt Introduce source flags to virDomainGetHostname() 2020-01-16 09:02:35 +01:00
m4 bootstrap: remove 26 more gnulib modules 2020-01-17 10:03:26 +00:00
po secret: move virSecretGetSecretString into virsecret 2020-01-17 15:52:37 +01:00
scripts virerror: Make it easier to add new error number 2020-01-10 13:53:32 +01:00
src libvirt: support an "embed" URI path selector for opening drivers 2020-01-27 11:03:49 +00:00
tests qemu: Implement builtin rng backend 2020-01-24 17:03:35 +01:00
tools src: replace gmtime_r/localtime_r/strftime with GDateTime 2020-01-17 10:02:01 +00:00
.color_coded.in Add color_coded support 2017-05-09 09:51:11 +02:00
.ctags ctags: Generate tags for headers, i.e. function prototypes 2018-09-18 14:21:33 +02:00
.dir-locals.el build: avoid tabs that failed syntax-check 2012-09-06 09:43:46 -06:00
.editorconfig Add .editorconfig 2019-09-06 12:47:46 +02:00
.gitignore bootstrap.conf: disable VC ignore files 2020-01-17 16:04:26 +01:00
.gitlab-ci.yml gitlab: Move mips job to Debian 9 2019-12-13 13:12:13 +01:00
.gitmodules gnulib: switch to use https:// instead of git:// protocol 2018-03-19 16:32:34 +00:00
.gitpublish gitpublish: add a subject prefix 2020-01-16 13:04:11 +00:00
.mailmap mailmap: Remove some duplicates 2019-06-07 13:18:08 +02:00
.travis.yml travis: add build for Debian 9 2020-01-07 14:42:26 +00:00
.ycm_extra_conf.py.in Add YouCompleteMe support 2017-05-09 09:51:11 +02:00
ABOUT-NLS po: provide custom make rules for po file management 2018-04-19 10:35:58 +01:00
AUTHORS.in AUTHORS: Add Fabiano Fidêncio 2019-12-19 16:42:06 +01:00
COPYING maint: follow recommended practice for using LGPL 2013-05-20 14:15:21 -06:00
COPYING.LESSER maint: Remove control characters from LGPL license file 2015-09-25 09:16:24 +02:00
ChangeLog maint: Stop generating ChangeLog from git 2019-04-03 09:45:25 +02:00
GNUmakefile build: merge all syntax-check logic into one file 2019-10-09 13:36:54 +01:00
Makefile.am bootstrap.conf: drop gnulib tests from libvirt 2020-01-17 16:04:26 +01:00
Makefile.nonreentrant Remove backslash alignment attempts 2017-11-03 13:24:12 +01:00
README Provide a useful README file 2017-05-22 17:01:37 +01:00
README-hacking build: mandate use of a build dir != src dir 2019-11-08 17:07:35 +01:00
README.md build: mandate use of a build dir != src dir 2019-11-08 17:07:35 +01:00
autogen.sh autogen.sh: fix autoreconf step 2020-01-17 16:04:26 +01:00
bootstrap maint: update to latest gnulib 2020-01-02 10:06:16 +01:00
bootstrap.conf bootstrap.conf: stop creating AUTHORS file 2020-01-17 16:04:26 +01:00
config-post.h util: introduce compile time API version checking 2020-01-07 14:42:26 +00:00
configure.ac bootstrap.conf: drop gnulib tests from libvirt 2020-01-17 16:04:26 +01:00
gitdm.config gitdm: add 'ibm' file 2019-10-18 17:32:52 +02:00
libvirt-admin.pc.in Add libvirt-admin library 2015-06-16 13:46:20 +02:00
libvirt-lxc.pc.in Add pkg-config files for libvirt-qemu & libvirt-lxc 2014-06-23 16:17:27 +01:00
libvirt-qemu.pc.in Add pkg-config files for libvirt-qemu & libvirt-lxc 2014-06-23 16:17:27 +01:00
libvirt.pc.in Add pkg-config files for libvirt-qemu & libvirt-lxc 2014-06-23 16:17:27 +01:00
libvirt.spec.in Remove phyp driver 2019-12-20 12:25:42 -05:00
mingw-libvirt.spec.in Remove phyp driver 2019-12-20 12:25:42 -05:00
run.in run.in: Include tools directory on $PATH. 2020-01-21 13:04:57 +01:00

README.md

Build Status CII Best Practices

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:

https://libvirt.org

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:

Further details on contacting the project are available on the website:

https://libvirt.org/contact.html