I've just pushed a new tool to virt-manager.git called virt-xml. virt-xml uses virt-install's command line options to allow building and editing domain XML. Best way to describe what it can do is with a bunch of examples: See a list of all suboptions that --disk and --network take # virt-xml --disk=? --network=? Change the <description> of domain 'example': # virt-xml example --edit --metadata description="my new description" # Enable the boot device menu for domain 'example': # virt-xml example --edit --boot bootmenu=on Clear the previous <cpu> definition of domain 'winxp', change it to 'host-model', but interactively confirm the diff before saving: # virt-xml winxp --edit --cpu host-model,clearxml=yes --confirm Change the sound cards with model=ac97 to model=ich6 on 'fedora19', but only output the diff: # virt-xml fedora19 --edit model=ac97 --soundhw model=ich6 --print-diff Update the first graphics password to 'foo' of the running VM 'rhel6': # virt-xml rhel6 --edit --graphics password=foo --update Remove the disk path from disk device hdc: # virt-xml rhel6 --edit target=hdc --disk path= Change all disk devices of type 'disk' to use cache=none, using XML from stdin, printing the new XML to stdout. # cat <xmlfile> | virt-xml --edit device=disk --disk cache=none Change all host devices to use driver_name=vfio for VM 'fedora20' on the remote connection # virt-xml --connect qemu+ssh://remotehost/system \ fedora20 --edit all --host-device driver_name=vfio Hotplug host USB device 001.003 to running domain 'fedora19': # virt-xml f19 --add-device --host-device 001.003 --update Add a spicevmc channel to the domain 'winxp', that will be available after the next VM shutdown. # virt-xml winxp --add-device --channel spicevmc Create a 10G qcow2 disk image and attach it to 'fedora18' for the next VM startup: # virt-xml fedora18 --add-device \ --disk /var/lib/libvirt/images/newimage.qcow2,format=qcow2,size=10 Remove the disk vdb from the running domain 'rhel7': # virt-xml rhel7 --remove-device --disk target=vdb Remove all graphics devices from the VM 'rhel7' after the next shutdown: # virt-xml rhel7 --remove-device --graphics all Generate XML for a virtio console device and print it to stdout: # virt-xml --build-xml --console pty,target_type=virtio The man page and --help output have more info, man page at: https://git.fedorahosted.org/cgit/virt-manager.git/tree/man/virt-xml.pod If you are interested in trying it out before it hits any distro, it's really simple: git clone git://git.fedorahosted.org/virt-manager.git cd virt-manager ./virt-xml --help Nothing is set in stone yet, so if anyone has suggestions about the command line syntax or any of the above, please speak up: I plan on cutting a new virt-manager release with virt-xml within the next few weeks. Thanks, Cole