Go bindings for libvirt.

Make sure to have libvirt-dev package (or the development files otherwise somewhere in your include path)

The libvirt go package provides API coverage for libvirt versions from 1.2.0 onwards, through conditional compilation of newer APIs.

By default the binding will support APIs in libvirt.so, libvirt-qemu.so and libvirt-lxc.so. Coverage for the latter two libraries can be dropped from the build using build tags 'without_qemu' or 'without_lxc' respectively.

The Go API is considered to be production ready and aims to be kept stable across future versions. Note, however, that the following changes may apply to future versions:

• Existing structs can be augmented with new fields, but no existing fields will be changed / removed. New fields are needed when libvirt defines new typed parameters for various methods

• Any method with an 'flags uint32' parameter will have its parameter type changed to a specific typedef, if & when the libvirt API defines constants for the flags. To avoid breakage, always pass a literal '0' to any 'flags uint32' parameter, since this will auto-cast to any future typedef that is introduced.

• api documentation for the bindings
• api documentation for libvirt

The libvirt project aims to add support for new APIs to libvirt-go as soon as they are added to the main libvirt C library. If you are submitting changes to the libvirt C library API, please submit a libvirt-go change at the same time.

Bug fixes and other improvements to the libvirt-go library are welcome at any time. The preferred submission method is to use git send-email to submit patches to the [email protected] mailing list. eg. to send a single patch

git send-email --to [email protected] --subject-prefix "PATCH go"
--smtp-server=$HOSTNAME -1

Or to send all patches on the current branch, against master

git send-email --to [email protected] --subject-prefix "PATCH go"
--smtp-server=$HOSTNAME --no-chain-reply-to --cover-letter --annotate
master..

Note the master GIT repository is at

• http://libvirt.org/git/?p=libvirt-go.git;a=summary

The following automatic read-only mirrors are available as a convenience to allow contributors to "fork" the repository:

• https://gitlab.com/libvirt/libvirt-go
• https://github.com/libvirt/libvirt-go

While you can send pull-requests to these mirrors, they will be re-submitted via emai to the mailing list for review before being merged, unless they are trivial/obvious bug fixes.

The core API unit tests are all written to use the built-in test driver (test:///default), so they have no interaction with the host OS environment.

Coverage of libvirt C library APIs / constants is verified using automated tests. These can be run by passing the 'api' build tag. eg go test -tags api

For areas where the test driver lacks functionality, it is possible to use the QEMU or LXC drivers to exercise code. Such tests must be part of the 'integration_test.go' file though, which is only run when passing the 'integration' build tag. eg go test -tags integration

In order to run the unit tests, libvirtd should be configured to allow your user account read-write access with no passwords. This can be easily done using polkit config files

# cat > /etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/50-libvirt.pkla  <<EOF
[Passwordless libvirt access]
Identity=unix-group:berrange
Action=org.libvirt.unix.manage
ResultAny=yes
ResultInactive=yes
ResultActive=yes
EOF

(Replace 'berrange' with your UNIX user name).

One of the integration tests also requires that libvirtd is listening for TCP connections on localhost, with sasl auth This can be setup by editing /etc/libvirt/libvirtd.conf to set

  listen_tls=0
  listen_tcp=1
  auth_tcp=sasl
  listen_addr="127.0.0.1"

and then start libvirtd with the --listen flag (this can be set in /etc/sysconfig/libvirtd to make it persistent).

Then create a sasl user

   saslpasswd2 -a libvirt user

and enter "pass" as the password.

Alternatively a Vagrantfile, requiring use of virtualbox, is included to run the integration tests:

• cd ./vagrant
• vagrant up to provision the virtual machine
• vagrant ssh to login to the virtual machine

Once inside, sudo su - and go test -tags integration libvirt.