Libvirt

The virtualization API libvirt is a toolkit to interact with the virtualization capabilities of recent versions of Linux (and other OSes). It has support for the Xen Project hypervisor, including a libxenlight port

The current URI syntax for libvirt can be found here. This is worth noting, as some older Xen-specific URI patterns have been deprecated in favor of a newer, generalized syntax.

WHO USES LIBVIRT?

Libvirt is commonly used by installations which need to support both Xen Project and KVM hypervisors. It is also used by companies like Oracle and SUSE in their OpenStack-based cloud offerings.

Also, the Xen4CentOS effort includes an updated version of libvirt.

HOWTOs

• DomU_Install_with_Virt-Manager gives an example of using Virt-Manager, a GUI which uses libvirt.
• DomU_Install_with_Virt-Install gives an example of using Virt-Install, which uses libvirt
• Fedora_Host_Installation steps through installing Fedora, and covers the use of libvirt-based tools

BLOG POSTS

• Libvirt support for the XL toolkit by Jim Fehlig