Chapter 33. Creating custom libvirt scripts

33.1. Using XML configuration files with virsh

This section provides some information which may be useful to programmers and system administrators intending to write custom scripts to make their lives easier by using libvirt.

Chapter 24, Miscellaneous administration tasks is recommended reading for programmers thinking of writing new applications which use libvirt.

33.1. Using XML configuration files with virsh

virsh can handle XML configuration files. You may want to use this to your advantage for scripting large deployments with special options. You can add devices defined in an XML file to a running virtualized guest. For example, to add a ISO file as hdc to a running guest create an XML file:

# cat satelliteiso.xml
<disk type="file" device="disk">
	<driver name="file"/>
	<source file="/var/lib/libvirt/images/rhn-satellite-5.0.1-11-redhat-linux-as-i386-4-embedded-oracle.iso"/>
	<target dev="hdc"/>
	<readonly/>
</disk>

Run virsh attach-device to attach the ISO as hdc to a guest called "satellite" :

# virsh attach-device satellite satelliteiso.xml