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Libvirt

Management tool

Wikipedia contributorsAdapted for Fathomly · View authors
1 min read
Source updated May 2, 2026
Image credit is listed at the end of this article.

libvirt is an open-source API, daemon and management tool for managing platform virtualization. It can be used to manage KVM, Xen, VMware ESXi, QEMU and other virtualization technologies. These APIs are widely used in the orchestration layer of hypervisors in the development of a cloud-based solution.

01Internals

libvirt is a C library with bindings in other languages, notably in Python, Perl, OCaml, Ruby, Java, JavaScript (via Node.js) and PHP. libvirt for these programming languages is composed of wrappers around another class/package called libvirtmod. libvirtmod's implementation is closely associated with its counterpart in C/C++ in syntax and functionality.

Supported Hypervisors

User Interfaces

Various virtualization programs and platforms use libvirt. Virtual Machine Manager, GNOME Boxes and others provide graphical interfaces. The most popular command line interface is virsh, and higher level tools such as oVirt.

libvirt supports several Hypervisors and is supported by several management solutions
libvirt supports several Hypervisors and is supported by several management solutions

02Corporate

Development of libvirt is backed by Red Hat, with significant contributions by other organisations and individuals. libvirt is available on most Linux distributions; remote servers are also accessible from Apple Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows clients.

03Books

  • Warnke, Robert; Ritzau, Thomas. qemu-kvm & libvirt (in German). Norderstedt, Germany: Books on Demand. ISBN 978-3-8370-0876-0.
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Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Libvirt”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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