Libvirt virt driver OS distribution support matrix

This page documents the libvirt versions present in the various distro versions that OpenStack Nova aims to be deployable with.

Note

This document was previously hosted on the OpenStack wiki:

https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/LibvirtDistroSupportMatrix

Libvirt minimum version change policy

At the start of each Nova development cycle this matrix will be consulted to determine if it is viable to drop support for any end-of-life or otherwise undesired distro versions. Based on this distro evaluation, it may be possible to increase the minimum required version of libvirt in Nova, and thus drop some compatibility code for older versions.

When a decision to update the minimum required libvirt version is made, there must be a warning issued for one cycle. This is achieved by editing nova/virt/libvirt/driver.py to set NEXT_MIN_LIBVIRT_VERSION. For example:

NEXT_MIN_LIBVIRT_VERSION = (X, Y, Z)

This causes a deprecation warning to be emitted when Nova starts up warning the admin that the version of libvirt in use on the host will no longer be supported in the subsequent release.

After a version has been listed in NEXT_MIN_LIBVIRT_VERSION for one release cycle, the corresponding actual minimum required libvirt can be updated by setting

MIN_LIBVIRT_VERSION = (X, Y, Z)

At this point of course, an even newer version might be set in NEXT_MIN_LIBVIRT_VERSION to repeat the process….

An email should also be sent at this point to the openstack-discuss@lists.openstack.org mailing list as a courtesy raising awareness of the change in minimum version requirements in the upcoming release, for example:

http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-discuss/2021-January/019849.html

There is more background on the rationale used for picking minimum versions in the operators mailing list thread here:

http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-operators/2015-May/007012.html

QEMU minimum version change policy

After choosing a minimum libvirt version, the minimum QEMU version is determined by looking for the lowest QEMU version from all the distros that support the decided libvirt version.

MIN_{LIBVIRT,QEMU}_VERSION and NEXT_MIN_{LIBVIRT,QEMU}_VERSION table

OpenStack Nova libvirt/QEMU Support Matrix

OpenStack Release

Nova Release

MIN_LIBVIRT_VERSION

NEXT_MIN_LIBVIRT_VERSION

MIN_QEMU_VERSION

NEXT_MIN_QEMU_VERSION

Havana

2013.2.0

0.9.6

0.9.6

Icehouse

2014.1

0.9.6

0.9.11

Juno

2014.2.0

0.9.11

0.9.11

Kilo

2015.1.0

0.9.11

0.9.11

Liberty

12.0.0

0.9.11

0.10.2

Mitaka

13.0.0

0.10.2

1.2.1

Newton

14.0.0

1.2.1

1.2.1

1.5.3

1.5.3

Ocata

15.0.0

1.2.1

1.2.9

1.5.3

2.1.0

Pike

16.0.0

1.2.9

1.3.1

2.1.0

2.5.0

Queens

17.0.0

1.2.9

1.3.1

2.1.0

2.5.0

Rocky

18.0.0

1.3.1

3.0.0

2.5.0

2.8.0

Stein

19.0.0

3.0.0

4.0.0

2.8.0

2.11.0

Train

20.0.0

3.0.0

4.0.0

2.8.0

2.11.0

Ussuri

21.0.0

4.0.0

5.0.0

2.11.0

4.0.0

Victoria

22.0.0

5.0.0

6.0.0

4.0.0

4.2.0

Wallaby

23.0.0

6.0.0

7.0.0

4.2.0

5.2.0

Xena

24.0.0

6.0.0

7.0.0

4.2.0

5.2.0

Yoga

25.0.0

6.0.0

7.0.0

4.2.0

5.2.0

Zed

26.0.0

6.0.0

7.0.0

4.2.0

5.2.0

2023.1 Antelope

27.0.0

6.0.0

7.0.0

4.2.0

5.2.0

2023.2 Bobcat

28.0.0

7.0.0

8.0.0

5.2.0

6.2.0

OS distribution versions

Warning

This section may become a bit outdated.

This table provides information on a representative sample of OS distros and the version of libvirt/QEMU/libguestfs that they ship. This is NOT intended to be an exhaustive list of distros where OpenStack Nova can run - it is intended to run on any Linux distro that can satisfy the minimum required software versions. This table merely aims to help identify when minimum required versions can be reasonably updated without losing support for important OS distros.

Distro libvirt/QEMU Support Table

OS Distro

GA date

Libvirt

QEMU/KVM

libguestfs

CentOS Stream

8

Provided by the advanced-virtualization module as of 2021-11-18.

7.0.0-14

5.2.0-16

1.44.0-2

9

As of 2021-11-18.

7.8.0-1

6.1.0-6

1.46.0-4

Debian

11.x (Bullseye) (“stable”)

2021-10-09

7.0.0

5.2

1.42.0

12.x (Bookworm) (“testing”)

No GA date as of 2021-11-18

7.6.0

6.1

1.42.0

Fedora

34

2021-04-27

7.0.0

5.2.0

1.45.4

35

2021-11-02

7.6.0

6.1.0

1.46.0

SUSE

Leap 15.2

2020-07-02

6.0.0

4.2.0

1.38.0

Leap 15.3

2021-06-02

7.2.0

6.0.0

1.44.1

RHEL

8.2

2020-04-28

6.0.0-17.2

4.2.0-19

1.40.2-22

8.3

2020-10-29

6.0.0-25.5

4.2.0-29

1.40.2-24

8.4

2021-05-18

7.0.0-8

5.2.0-10

1.44.0-2

8.5

2021-11-09

7.6.0-6

6.0.0-33

1.44.0-3

SLES

15 (SP2)

2020

6.0.0

4.2.1

1.38.0

15 (SP3)

2021

7.1.0

5.2.0

1.38.0

Ubuntu

20.04 (Focal Fossa LTS)

2020-04-23

6.0.0

4.2

1.40.2

21.04 (Hirsute Hippo)

2021-04-22

7.0.0

5.2

1.44.1