libvirtd - Man Page

libvirtd [OPTION]...

The libvirtd program is the server side daemon component of the libvirt virtualization management system.

This daemon runs on host servers and performs required management tasks for virtualized guests.  This includes activities such as starting, stopping and migrating guests between host servers, configuring and manipulating networking, and managing storage for use by guests.

The libvirt client libraries and utilities connect to this daemon to issue tasks and collect information about the configuration and resources of the host system and guests.

By default, the libvirtd daemon listens for requests on a local Unix domain socket.  Using the -l | --listen command line option, the libvirtd daemon can be instructed to additionally listen on a TCP/IP socket.  The TCP/IP socket to use is defined in the libvirtd configuration file.

Restarting libvirtd does not impact running guests.  Guests continue to operate and will be picked up automatically if their XML configuration has been defined.  Any guests whose XML configuration has not been defined will be lost from the configuration.

The libvirtd daemon is capable of starting in two modes.

In the traditional mode, it will create and listen on UNIX sockets itself. If the --listen parameter is given, it will also listen on TCP/IP socket(s), according to the listen_tcp and listen_tls options in /etc/libvirt/libvirtd.conf

In socket activation mode, it will rely on systemd to create and listen on the UNIX, and optionally TCP/IP, sockets and pass them as pre-opened file descriptors. In this mode, it is not permitted to pass the --listen parameter, and most of the socket related config options in /etc/libvirt/libvirtd.conf will no longer have any effect. To enable TCP or TLS sockets use either

$ systemctl start libvirtd-tls.socket

Or

$ systemctl start libvirtd-tcp.socket

Socket activation mode is generally the default when running on a host OS that uses systemd. To revert to the traditional mode, all the socket unit files must be masked:

$ systemctl mask libvirtd.socket libvirtd-ro.socket \
   libvirtd-admin.socket libvirtd-tls.socket libvirtd-tcp.socket

On top of that make sure that the --timeout argument is not used for the daemon since it would not be started upon any later connection.

If using libvirt-guests service then the ordering for that service needs to be adapted so that it is ordered after the service unit instead of the socket unit. Since dependencies and ordering cannot be changed with drop-in overrides, the whole libvirt-guests unit file needs to be changed.  In order to preserve such change copy the installed /usr/lib/systemd/system/libvirt-guests.service to /etc/systemd/system/libvirt-guests.service and make the change there, specifically make sure the After= ordering mentions libvirtd.service and not libvirtd.socket:

[Unit]
After=libvirtd.service

-h,  --help

Display command line help usage then exit.

-d,  --daemon

Run as a daemon & write PID file.

-f, --config *FILE*

Use this configuration file, overriding the default value.

-l,  --listen

Listen for TCP/IP connections. This should not be set if using systemd socket activation. Instead activate the libvirtd-tls.socket or libvirtd-tcp.socket unit files.

-p, --pid-file *FILE*

Use this name for the PID file, overriding the default value.

-t, --timeout *SECONDS*

Exit after timeout period (in seconds), provided there are neither any client connections nor any running domains.

-v,  --verbose

Enable output of verbose messages.

--version

Display version information then exit.

On receipt of SIGHUP libvirtd will reload its configuration.

To retrieve the version of libvirtd:

# libvirtd --version
libvirtd (libvirt) 10.10.0

To start libvirtd, instructing it to daemonize and create a PID file:

# libvirtd -d
# ls -la /run/libvirtd.pid
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6 Jul  9 02:40 /run/libvirtd.pid

Please report all bugs you discover.  This should be done via either:

1. the mailing list

   <https://libvirt.org/contact.html>

2. the bug tracker

   <https://libvirt.org/bugs.html>

Alternatively, you may report bugs to your software distributor / vendor.

Please refer to the AUTHORS file distributed with libvirt.

Copyright (C) 2006-2012 Red Hat, Inc., and the authors listed in the libvirt Authors file.

libvirtd is distributed under the terms of the GNU LGPL v2.1+. This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE

virsh(1), virt-install(1), virt-xml-validate(1), virt-top(1), virt-df(1),  <https://libvirt.org/>

libvirt-guests(8), pmdalibvirt(1), virtinterfaced(8), virtlockd(8), virtlogd(8), virtlxcd(8), virtnetworkd(8), virtnodedevd(8), virtnwfilterd(8), virtproxyd(8), virtqemud(8), virtsecretd(8), virtstoraged(8), virtual_domain_context(5), virtual_image_context(5), virtvboxd(8), virtxend(8).