libvirt-go

Go bindings for libvirt.

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

Version Support

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.

Development status

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.

Documentation

• API documentation for the bindings
• API documentation for libvirt

Contributing

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.

For more information, see the CONTRIBUTING file.

Testing

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).

Two 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).

sasl authentication must be configured to use either digest-md5 or scram-sha-1, and the needed sasl modules must be installed on the system.

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.