libvirt releases
================
# v3.1.0 (unreleased)
* New features
- storage: Add Virtuozzo storage backend storage pool
Add new storage backend to support pool and volume management within
the Virtuozzo Storage environment. Virtuozzo Storage is a highly
available distributed software defined storage with built-in
replication and disaster recovery.
- qemu: Add support for memory backing with file source
Add support in numa topology for file source inside memory backing
(hugepages are not needed) Three new elements <source/>,<access/> and
<allocation/> were added to <memoryBacking/> element. Also new
configuration parameter memory_backing_dir was added to qemu.conf.
- network: make openvswitch call timeout configurable
Adding the ability to specify the timeout value in seconds for
openvswitch calls in the libvirtd configuration file.
- bhyve: add e1000 NIC support
Add support for e1000 NIC. Previously, the only available option was
virtio-net.
- libxl: add tunneled migration support
Add tunneled migration to libxl driver, which is always capable of
strong encryption and doesn't require any extra network connection
other than what's required for remote access of libvirtd.
- qemu: add rendernode argument
Add a new attribute 'rendernode' to <gl> spice element.
- nodedev: add drm capability
Add a new 'drm' capability for Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) devices,
providing device type information.
- Add API for individual/specific vCPU hotplug
The new API allows selecting specific vCPUs to be added/removed from
the VM. The existing APIs allowed only adding/removing from the end
which did not play well with NUMA.
* Improvements
- virsh: pool-list: allow both --uuid and --name in one command
Adjust the virsh-pool command to support the --uuid and/or --name
options in order to print just the --name and/or --uuid of pools.
- Introduce MTU to domain <interface/> and <network>
Allow setting MTU size for some types of domain interface and network.
- libxl: improve support for <timer> configurations
Add support for multiple timers. Extend the tsc timer to support the
emulate mode. Improve conversion of timer XML to/from xl.cfg.
- storage: modularize the storage driver
Split up the storage driver backends into loadable modules so that
binary distributions don't have to compromise on shipping the storage
driver with all backends which may pull in too many dependencies.
* Bug fixes
- nodedev: Fabric name must not be required for fc_host capability
fabric_name is one of many fc_host attributes in Linux that is optional
and left to the low-level driver to decide if it is implemented. For
example the zfcp device driver does not provide a fabric name for an
fcp host. The requirement for the existence of a fabric name has been
removed by making it optional.
- bhyve: change address allocation schema for SATA disks
Previously, the bhyve driver assigned PCI addresses to SATA disks
directly rather than assigning that to a controller and using SATA
addresses for disks. It was implemented this way because bhyve has no
notion of an explicit SATA controller. However, as this doesn't match
libvirt's understanding of disk addresses, the bhyve driver was changed
to follow the common schema and have PCI addresses for SATA controllers
and SATA addresses for disks. If you're having issues because of this,
it's recommended to edit the domain's XML and remove <address
type='pci'> from the <disk> elements with <target bus='sata'/> and let
libvirt regenerate it properly.
- libxl: maximum memory fixes
Fix reporting of domain maximum memory. Fix setting dom0 maximum
memory.
- libxl: fix disk detach when <driver> not specified
- libxl: fix dom0 autoballooning with Xen 4.8
- qemu: Allow empty script path to <interface/>
Historically, this was always allowed. Unfortunately, due to some
rework done for 1.3.2 release a bug was dragged in which suddenly stop
allowing domain with such configuration to start.
# v3.0.0 (2017-01-17)
* New features
- Domain events for metadata content changes
The domain events framework has a new event ID that can be used to get
notifications when domain metadata content changes.
- Event notifications for the secret object
The secret object now supports event notifications, covering lifcycle
changes and secret value changes.
- New localPtr attribute for "ip" element in network XML
- qemu: Support QEMU group I/O throttling
Add the capability to allow group I/O throttling via a new domain
<disk> <iotune> subelement "group_name" to allow sharing I/O throttling
quota between multiple drives.
- nss: Introduce libvirt_guest
New libvirt_guest nss module that translates libvirt guest names into
IP addresses.
- daemon: Add support for runtime logging settings adjustment
Logging-related settings like log outputs and filters can now be
adjusted during runtime using the admin interface without the necessity
of the daemon's restart.
- storage: Add virStorageVolInfoFlags API
Add the API to support using the VIR_STORAGE_VOL_GET_PHYSICAL flag in
order to return the host physical size in bytes of the image container
in the allocation field of the _virStorageVolInfo structure. The
--physical flag has been added to the virsh vol-info command to access
the data.
- libxl: Implement virDomainGetMaxVcpus API
- storage: Add overwrite flag checking for logical pool
Add support for the OVERWRITE flags for the logical storage backend
including checking for existing data on the target volumes when
building a new logical pool on target volume(s).
- qemu: Add support for guest CPU configuration on s390(x)
* Improvements
- perf: Add more perf statistics
Add support to get the count of branch instructions executed, branch
misses, bus cycles, stalled frontend cpu cycles, stalled backend cpu
cycles, and ref cpu cycles by applications running on the platform.
- conf: Display <physical> for volume xml
Add a display of the <physical> size of a disk volume in the output of
the volume XML.
- qemu: Use virtio-pci by default for aarch64 mach-virt guests
virtio-pci provides several advantages over virtio-mmio, such as the
ability to hotplug devices and improved performance. While opting in to
virtio-pci has been possible for a while, newly-defined guests will now
use it automatically.
- vbox: remove support for VirtualBox 3.x and older
Those old VirtualBox versions have been unsupported by upstream for a
long time and the API of 4.0 and newer has diverged enough to require
code abstractions to handle differences. Removing support for those old
versions drops lots of code from the driver and simplifies the logic to
ease implementation of new features going forward.
- virsh: pool-info: introduce option --bytes
Add option --bytes to virsh pool-info in order ti allow display of
units in bytes rather than default of human readable output.
- scsi: Add parent wwnn/wwpn or fabric capability for createVport
Improve the algorithm searching for the parent scsi_host device for
vHBA/NPIV scsi_host creation. Rather than supplying the "parent" by
name, it's now possible to define the parent by it's wwnn/wwpn or
fabric_wwn in the node device create XML or the storage pool XML.
- qemu: aggregate pcie-root-ports onto multiple functions of a slot
When pcie-root-ports are added to pcie-root in order to provide a place
to connect PCI Express endpoint devices, libvirt now aggregates
multiple root ports together onto the same slot (up to 8 per slot) in
order to conserve slots. Using this method, it's possible to connect
more than 200 endpoint devices to a guest that uses PCIe without
requiring setup of any PCIe switches.
* Bug fixes
- lxc: fix accidental killing of containers during libvirtd restart
The libvirt_lxc process was previously not moved into the container
scope. As a result, if systemd reloads its config after a container is
started, when libvirtd is later restarted it will accidentally kill the
containers.
- qemu: Correct GetBlockInfo values
For an active domain, correct the physical value provided for a raw
sparse file backed storage and the allocation value provided for a
qcow2 file backed storage that hasn't yet been opened on the domain.
- qemu: Make virtio console usable on ppc64 guests
The chardev detection code has been improved and can now handle this
configuration properly.
- qemu: Enable mount namespace
To avoid funny races with udev relabelling devices under our hands and
to enhance security, libvirt now spawns each qemu process with its own
/dev.
- storage: Fix implementation of no-overwrite for file system backend
Fix file system storage backend implementation of the OVERWRITE flags
to be consistent between code and documentation. Add checks to ensure
that when building a new file system on a target volume that there is
not something already on the disk in a format that libvirt can
recognize.
- qemu: Create hugepage path on per domain basis
Historically, all hugepage enabled domains shared the same path under
hugetlbfs. This left libvirt unable to correctly set security labels on
it. With this release, however, each domain is put into a separate path
which is also correctly labeled.
- conf: Reject domains with duplicate drive addresses
Reject duplicate drive addresses for disks and hostdevs at domain
definition.
- libxl: reverse defaults on HVM net device attach
Fixes network interface attach for HVM domains when no model is
specified. Emulated hotplug isn't yet supported and hence we should
default to the general working scenario.
- libxl: always enable pae for x86_64 HVM
By default pae is disabled in libxl. Without an explicit <pae/> setting
in the domain <features> configuration, an x86_64 HVM domain would be
get an i686 environment. pae should always be enabled for x86_64 HVM
domains.
- qemu: Fix XML dump of autogenerated websocket
As a result autogenerated websocket port is regenerated on domain
restore, migration and such as it should be.
# v2.5.0 (2016-12-04)
* New features
- shmem: Add support for additional models
The shmem device can now utilize QEMU's ivshmem-plain and
ivshmem-doorbell, more modern versions of ivshmem.
- vbox: Add VirtualBox 5.1 support
- libssh: New transport
The new libssh transport allows one to connect to a running libvirtd
via SSH, using the libssh library; for example:
qemu+libssh://server/system.
- vhost-scsi: Add support scsi_host hostdev passthrough
Add the capability to pass through a scsi_host HBA and the associated
LUNs to the guest.
- qemu: Users can now enable debug logging for native gluster volumes in
qemu using the "gluster_debug_level" option in qemu.conf
- memory hotplug: Slot numbers for memory devices are now automatically
allocated and thus persistent. In addition slot numbers can be specified
without providing a base address, which simplifies user configuration
- qemu: Express devices will be placed on PCIe bus by default
For machine types that use a PCI Express root bus (e.g. x86_64/Q35 and
aarch64/virt), any unaddressed PCI device that is an Express device
(all virtio-1.0 devices, e1000e, nec-xhci, vfio assigned devices) will
be placed on an Express controller (i.e. a pcie-root-port) instead of a
legacy PCI controller (i.e. pci-bridge) with the root ports added as
needed.
* Improvements
- docs: Better documentation for migration APIs and flags
- vbox: Address thread safety issues
- virsh: Add support for passing an alternative persistent XML to migrate
command
- vhostuser: Allow hotplug of multiqueue devices
- NEWS: Switch to an improved format
List user-visible changes instead of single commits for a better
high-level overview of differences between libvirt releases.
- website: Modernize layout and branding
The libvirt website looked very cluttered and outdated; it has now been
completely overhauled, resulting in a design that's better organized
and more pleasant to look at.
* Bug fixes
- vz: Fix migration in P2P mode
- Forbid newline character in names of some libvirt objects
- Fix compilation on macOS
==============================================================================
Older libvirt releases didn't have proper release notes: if you are interested
in changes between them, you should check out ChangeLog* and docs/news-*.html.