libvirt: The virtualization API

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The virtualization API

libvirt is:

• A toolkit to interact with the virtualization capabilities of recent versions of Linux (and other OSes), see our project goals for details.
• Free software available under the GNU Lesser General Public License.
• A long term stable C API
• A set of bindings for common languages
• A CIM provider for the DMTF virtualization schema
• A QMF agent for the AMQP/QPid messaging system
• A technical meritocracy, in which participants gain influence over a project through recognition of their contributions.

libvirt supports:

• The KVM/QEMU Linux hypervisor
• The Xen hypervisor on Linux and Solaris hosts.
• The LXC Linux container system
• The OpenVZ Linux container system
• The User Mode Linux paravirtualized kernel
• The VirtualBox hypervisor
• The VMware ESX and GSX hypervisors
• The VMware Workstation and Player hypervisors
• The Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisor
• The IBM PowerVM hypervisor
• The Parallels hypervisor
• The Bhyve hypervisor
• Virtual networks using bridging, NAT, VEPA and VN-LINK.
• Storage on IDE/SCSI/USB disks, FibreChannel, LVM, iSCSI, NFS and filesystems

libvirt provides:

• Remote management using TLS encryption and x509 certificates
• Remote management authenticating with Kerberos and SASL
• Local access control using PolicyKit
• Zero-conf discovery using Avahi multicast-DNS
• Management of virtual machines, virtual networks and storage
• Portable client API for Linux, Solaris and Windows