Manipulating network interfaces

Libvirt provides a handy way to manage network interfaces on the host through the already familiar XML definition syntax. We can use the virsh command to define, provision, and delete Linux bridges and obtain more information about existing network interfaces, as you've already seen in this chapter.

In this recipe, we are going to define a new Linux bridge, create it, and finally remove it using virsh. If you recall from earlier recipes, we can manipulate the Linux bridge through utilities such as brctl. With libvirt, however, we have a way to control this programmatically by writing the definition file and using the API bindings, as we'll see in Chapter 7, Using Python to Build and Manage KVM Instances.

Getting ready

For this recipe, we are going to need the following:

• The libvirt package installed on the host
• A Linux host with the bridge kernel module

How to do it...

To create a new bridge interface using libvirt, run the following commands:

1. Create a new bridge...