Chapter 4: Libvirt Networking

Understanding how virtual networking works is really essential for virtualization. It would be very hard to justify the costs associated with a scenario in which we didn't have virtual networking. Just imagine having multiple virtual machines on a virtualization host and buying network cards so that every single one of those virtual machines can have their own dedicated, physical network port. By implementing virtual networking, we're also consolidating networking in a much more manageable way, both from an administration and cost perspective.

This chapter provides you with an insight into the overall concept of virtualized networking and Linux-based networking concepts. We will also discuss physical and virtual networking concepts, try to compare them, and find similarities and differences between them. Also covered in this chapter is the concept of virtual switching for a per-host concept and spanned-across-hosts concept, as well as some...