On 12/18/25 18:06, Stephen Finucane wrote:
We automatically generate an alias for virtually all devices if a user hasn't provided one [1]. Indicate this.
Note that I have not listed all devices that support auto-generated aliases since that list would be liable to get stale rather quickly.
[1] https://github.com/libvirt/libvirt/blob/v11.10.0/src/qemu/qemu_alias.c#L692-...
Signed-off-by: Stephen Finucane <stephen@that.guru> --- docs/formatdomain.rst | 5 ++++- 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
diff --git a/docs/formatdomain.rst b/docs/formatdomain.rst index 1467fc7e10..5cb387dc82 100644 --- a/docs/formatdomain.rst +++ b/docs/formatdomain.rst @@ -2593,7 +2593,7 @@ guest domain. All devices occur as children of the main ``devices`` element.
To help users identifying devices they care about, every device can have direct child ``alias`` element which then has ``name`` attribute where users can store -identifier for the device. The identifier has to have "ua-" prefix and must be +identifier for the device. The identifier has to have ``ua-`` prefix and must be unique within the domain. Additionally, the identifier must consist only of the following characters: ``[a-zA-Z0-9_-]``. :since:`Since 3.9.0`
@@ -2609,6 +2609,9 @@ following characters: ``[a-zA-Z0-9_-]``. :since:`Since 3.9.0` ... </devices>
+If a user-specified alias is not provided, one will be automatically generated +for most devices, based on attributes of the device such as its type.
Not every driver does this. There are plenty of drivers (e.g. libxl, lxc, vbox, esx) that don't have the concept of generated aliases. They may support user aliases though (currently, CH, QEMU and libxl drivers do that). Maybe you need to reword this? Michal