Chapter 11. The Xen API

The Xen API is a somewhat confusing term. Most of this book discusses how to interact with Xen, and so it seems odd to have a single chapter dedicated to the “API.” This is because Xen provides two interfaces. One is used by guests, and the other is used by tools. The first is known as the hypercall API, and is the focus of most of this book. The other is known as the Xen API, or sometimes the Xen Management API, and is the focus of this chapter. This chapter will discuss the design of the Xen API, how it is used, and how components of the Xen system use it to communicate.

The Xen API is built atop XML-RPC, although C and Python bindings are available, which are generally easier for developers to use. The full API specification ...

Get The Definitive Guide to the Xen Hypervisor now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.