[libvirt] Building libvirt under Windows

[Pavel Fedin]

 Hello!

> I haven't done much testing of the resulting project, but
> the ./autobuild.sh script is able to cross-build for mingw when run on
> a Fedora system, if you have enough of the mingw-* packages installed
> on Fedora.  This includes mingw64-portablexdr (I have no idea if the
> mingw project will be shifting to a different xdr package any time
> soon).

 So, we need portablexdr on Windows. Can we convince the author to add the necessary fixes, or take over the maintainership ? Below is a snip from his original reply to me:
--- cut ---
I'm unlikely to fix any bugs in portableXDR now.  The original reason for having it was because XDR was under a non-free license, but that has been resolved, so you can use XDR code on Windows.

Anyway, you might want to send your observations to libvir-list at redhat.com since that's where the libvirt developers hang out.
--- cut ---

 I also have here the necessary patches which allow me to build libvirt natively under MinGW using portablexdr and its rpcgen. But, first we need fixed portablexdr version. Its rpcgen is currently broken twice (i found the second bug after sending that email).

Kind regards,
Pavel Fedin
Expert Engineer
Samsung Electronics Research center Russia


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Eric Blake [mailto:eblake at redhat.com]
> Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2015 3:43 PM
> To: Pavel Fedin; libvir-list at redhat.com
> Subject: Re: [libvirt] Building libvirt under Windows
> 
> On 04/16/2015 03:52 AM, Pavel Fedin wrote:
> >  Hello!
> >
> >  I am currently building libvirt under Windows64, and i would like to
> > ask for correct way to do it.
> >  The first thing to resolve is absence of RPC XDR library. From
> > configure source i figured out that portablexdr library may help. I
> > have downloaded it, but it comes with a different RPC code generator
> named portable-rpcgen.
> > I managed to use it, but i had to patch both libvirt (in order to
> > recognize this generator and handle it properly) and portable-rpcgen
> > (in order to correctly work under Windows, as well as get rid of some
> crashes).
> >  Initially i wanted to upstream portablexdr fixes and emailed the
> author.
> > But the author replied that he is not going to fix portablexdr
> because
> > it's now deprecated, since original XDR code comes under free license
> > now. So, i have all necessary fixes in my own fork. He suggested me
> to
> > come here to ask about these things.
> >  So, guys, how do you do it ? I cannot find any rpcgen package usable
> > under Windows (MinGW, not Cygwin).
> 

> 
> --
> Eric Blake   eblake redhat com    +1-919-301-3266
> Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org