This is the updated proposal for URIs. Code to follow ...
/* Architecture and notes:
*
* virConnectOpen in this driver looks for remote URLs and will
* try some method to connect to a libvirtd running on a remote
* machine.
*
* Local URLs are the standard URLs used by other drivers -
* for example "qemud:///system".
*
* Remote URLs contain either a server name or a remote transport
* name. For example: "qemud://server.example.com/system" contains
* a server name (server.example.com), and "qemud+unix:///system"
* contains a transport (unix). Commonly remote URLs contain
* both, for example: "qemud+tls://server.example.com/system"
* (transport tls, server name server.example.com).
*
* All other vir* calls made on this connection are forwarded
* to the libvirtd daemon which carries out the requested action.
* So for example if you call virDomainCreateLinux, then the
* domain gets created on the remote machine, and virConnectListDomains
* lists domains running on the remote machine.
*
* Connections can be authenticated and encrypted -- it depends
* on the transport selected.
*
* The current implementation uses SunRPC layered over one of:
* - GnuTLS (an SSL/TLS library providing enterprise-level
* authentication and encryption)
* - a local Unix domain socket
* - ssh or another external program such as rsh
* - a plain TCP socket (unencrypted, not recommended for production)
*
* See http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/secure_rpc for an insight into
* the thinking that went into the selection of SunRPC. In
* the future we may use a different RPC system - for example
* XML-RPC would be a logical choice - so for now you should regard
* the protocol used as private and subject to change in future
* versions of libvirt without notice.
*
* The URL (name parameter to virConnectOpen) is a URL of the
* following general form:
*
* "driver+transport://server:port/path?var=value&var=value&..."
*
* Transport, server and port are all optional (except that you must
* have either transport or server as explained above). You may
* have zero or more variables (or omit the query string entirely).
* Driver is the usual libvirt driver, as used on the remote
* machine, and path is specific to driver.
*
* Some examples:
*
* "xend://server/" Remote xend, using TLS, port 16514
* "qemud+unix:///session" Communicate over Unix domain socket
* to a local libvirtd.
* "qemud+ssh://server/session?command=/opt/openssh/bin/ssh"
* Communicate over ssh to a remote
* libvirtd on server. Control qemu
* on remote. ssh command is located
* in a non-standard place.
* "qemud+tcp://server:5000/session"
* Unencrypted TCP, port 5000.
* "xend+ext:///?command=my_shell_script"
* Run my_shell_script which uses its own
* method (eg. rsh, ssh, ...) to talk to
* the remote libvirtd, controlling a
* remote xend.
*
* [To emphasise - in ALL instances communication is with a remote
* libvirtd, even if that remote libvirtd itself talks to another
* daemon such as xend or qemud].
*
* The transport is one of: tls, unix, ssh, ext or tcp. If no
* transport is given, the default is to use tls.
*
* For tls, the default port is 16514. For tcp, the default port is
* 16509 (but note that tcp is almost never enabled because it is
* insecure - it's only there for testing).
*
* For ssh: The default port for ssh is 22. You should configure ssh
* so that it doesn't ask for a password (eg. using ssh-agent). The
* remote server should have a recent version of the the netcat program
* installed as 'nc', and the remote libvirtd must be configured to
* listen on a Unix domain socket. The following full command is run:
* ssh -p $port $hostname nc -U /var/run/libvirtd/socket
*
* For ext: Only the command you specify is run. It is up to you to
* write this command so that it somehow makes a connection to a
* remote libvirtd, and passes input and output over its stdin/stdout.
*
* The var=value pairs provide optional extra information:
*
* Variable Transport Meaning
* -----------------------------------------
* command ssh,ext Name or path of external program.
* For ssh this defaults to "ssh".
* For ext you must supply it.
* name (all) Optionally the name used in remote
* virConnectOpen. The default is to
* construct the name by removing
* transport, server name, port and
* variables from the remote URL to
* form a local URL. But if this
* doesn't give the desired result you
* may specify the exact name here.
* socket unix,ssh,ext Name of the Unix domain socket. The
* default is in <remote_internal.h>.
* netcat ssh Name of the netcat program on the
* remote server. Default is "nc".
*
* The value is %-escaped (just like URL encoding), so if you want it
* to contain a literal space use "%20" or "+", if you want it to have
* a literal + character use "%2b", and for a literal % character use
"%25".
*
* To provide some forwards compatibility, variables which are not
* understood are ignored (but a warning is printed on stderr).
*
* For the details of the implementation of SunRPC over GnuTLS, etc.
* please see http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/secure_rpc which contains
* simple code samples which will allow you to understand what's
* going on here.
*/
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and make dark of the things which are in their nature excessively
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