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_VESION. 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}_VESION and NEXT_MIN_{LIBVIRT,QEMU}_VESION table

OpenStack Nova libvirt/QEMU Support Matrix

OpenStack Release

Nova Release

MIN_LIBVIRT_VESION

NEXT_MIN_LIBVIRT_VESION

MIN_QEMU_VESION

NEXT_MIN_QEMU_VESION

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

OS distribution versions

This table provides information on a representative sample of OS distros and the version of libirt/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

Debian

10.x (Buster) (“stable”)

as of 2020-05-15

5.0.0

3.1

1.40

11.x (Bullseye) (“sid” - unstable)

No GA date as of 2020-05-15

6.0.0

5.0

1.42.0

Fedora

32

2020-04-28

6.1.0

4.2.0

1.42.0

33

2020-10-27

6.6.0

5.1.0

1.43.0

SUSE

Leap 15.0

2018-05

4.0.0

2.11.1

1.38.0

Leap 15.1

2019-05-22

5.1.0

3.1.1

1.38.0

Leap 15.2

2020-07-02 (scheduled)

6.0.0

4.2.0

1.38.0

RHEL

7.7

2019-08-06

4.5.0-23

2.12.0-33

1.40.2-5

7.8

2020-03-31

4.5.0-36

2.12.0-48

1.40.2-10

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

SLES

15

2018-07

4.0.0

2.11.1

1.38.0

15.1

2019

5.1.0

3.1.1

1.38.0

15.2

2020

6.0.0

4.2.1

1.38.0

Ubuntu

18.04 (Bionic LTS - Cloud Archive)

as of 2019-11-18

5.4

4.0

1.36

20.04 (Focal Fossa)

2020-04-23

6.0.0

4.2

1.40.2