virt-manager/virt-manager
Virt Manager
virt-manager is a graphical management interface for configuring hypervisors, virtual machine instances, and containers via the libvirt API. It provides a desktop environment for managing KVM-based virtualization on Linux hosts, acting as a centralized controller for both local and remote hypervisors.
The project distinguishes itself through integrated management of the surrounding virtualization infrastructure. It includes dedicated interfaces for virtual network administration to connect guests to physical hardware and virtual storage management for organizing disk volumes into logical pools.
The software covers a wide range of virtualization orchestration capabilities, including guest hardware configuration, machine cloning, and lifecycle management. It provides tools for monitoring real-time resource utilization for both hosts and guests, alongside graphical console access for interacting with guest operating systems. Provisioning and configuration are handled through both the interface and the modification of underlying XML domain definitions.
Features
- Virtual Machine Lifecycle Management - Provides a centralized system for monitoring hypervisors and managing the operational state of guest instances.
- Virtual Machine Managers - Provides a comprehensive manager for creating, configuring, and orchestrating the lifecycle of KVM virtual machines.
- Graphical Console Access - Provides graphical console access to virtual machine displays via SPICE and other remote protocols.
- Remote Hypervisor Controllers - Ships a client for connecting to and managing virtualization environments on remote hosts.
- Virtual Hardware Customization - Allows detailed configuration of virtual machine properties and emulated hardware specifications.
- Graphical Management Interfaces - Provides a graphical tool for configuring and monitoring KVM-based virtualization environments on Linux.
- XML Configuration Editors - Enables modification of underlying XML domain definitions to change virtual machine hardware and software settings.
- Virtual Domain Definitions - Uses structured XML files to define and persist the hardware and software settings of virtual machines.
- Hypervisor Abstractions - Provides a consistent abstraction layer via libvirt to manage various hypervisor backends.
- Remote Server Connectivities - Establishes connections to local or remote hosts for centralized management of virtualized environments.
- Remote Hypervisor Management - Enables connecting to and managing virtualized environments on remote servers from a centralized desktop interface.
- Monitoring and Performance - Monitors performance and resource utilization for both the physical host and virtual guests.
- Storage Pool Managers - Organizes physical disk space into logical pools to allocate and track virtual disk images.
- Virtual Storage Managers - Provides a management interface for allocating disk volumes and organizing storage pools for virtualized guests.
- Virtual Disk Overlays - Manages persistent storage via virtual disk images and mapped volumes for guest instances.
- Virtual Machine Provisioning - Offers a command line interface for installing, bootstrapping, and automating the deployment of new virtual machines.
- Remote Desktop Protocols - Streams graphical data from the hypervisor to the local viewer using remote desktop protocols.
- Bridge Networking Configurations - Allows the creation and configuration of network bridges to connect guests to physical hardware.
- Virtual Network Management - Manages the lifecycle and configuration of virtual networks to enable guest-to-guest and guest-to-internet connectivity.
- Hypervisor Metrics - Tracks real-time CPU and memory utilization metrics for both physical hosts and virtual guests.
- Machine Cloning - Provides functionality to duplicate virtual machines by copying disk images and generating unique identifiers.
- XML System Configurations - Provides an interface for editing the underlying XML system configurations of virtual domains.
- Virtualization Performance Monitors - Tracks and displays real-time hardware metrics and resource utilization for virtualized domains.
- Virtualization Management - Graphical interface for managing virtual machines via libvirt.
- Virtualization and Isolation - Desktop interface for managing virtual machines via libvirt.
