Chapter 4. Administration tasks

The para-virtualized drivers allow disk hot plugging for Windows fully virtualized guests. To hot plug para-virtualized disks use the virsh command modifying <domain>, <disk image file> and <device node>:

# virsh attach-disk --driver tap --subdriver aio <domain> <disk image file> <device node>

Using virsh to attach a new, hot plugged disk, labeled /var/lib/xen/images/wxp32-2.img, with the alias /dev/xvdb to the guest named wxp32:

# virsh attach-disk --driver tap --subdriver aio wxp32 /var/lib/xen/images/wxp32-2.img /dev/xvdb

To detach a disk dynamically, use virsh with the detach-disk option:

virsh detach-disk <domain> <device node>

This example detaches a disk, /dev/xvdb, from a guest named wxp32:

# virsh detach-disk wxp32 /dev/xvdb