Sometimes you may execute “virsh undefine” command .. but if you really didnt meant to delete the guest configuration from disk, please make sure you have a backup of the guest configuraiton file in a location which is NOT default for libvirt ie /etc/libvirt/qemu. Otherwise you may wonder where it went after virsh undefine command.
libvirt code path does do a “unlink” operation on the guest configuration file when you execute virsh undefine” command.
This is the snip from my system::
[terminal]
[root@humbles-lap ~]# cd /etc/libvirt/qemu
[root@humbles-lap qemu]# ls
networks rhel5.4-x86_64-kvm_backup.xml rhel5.4-x86_64-kvm.xml RHEL-5.xml rhevh.xml Window-2008.xml
[root@humbles-lap qemu]# virsh define rhel5.4-x86_64-kvm.xml
Domain rhel5.4-x86_64-kvm defined from rhel5.4-x86_64-kvm.xml
[root@humbles-lap qemu]# virsh list –inactive
Id Name State
———————————-
– RHEL-5 shut off
– rhel5.4-x86_64-kvm shut off
– RHEV-H-Server shut off
– Window-2008 shut off
[root@humbles-lap qemu]# pwd
/etc/libvirt/qemu
[root@humbles-lap qemu]# cp rhel5.4-x86_64-kvm.xml /tmp/
[root@humbles-lap qemu]# ls
networks rhel5.4-x86_64-kvm_backup.xml rhel5.4-x86_64-kvm.xml RHEL-5.xml rhevh.xml Window-2008.xml
[root@humbles-lap qemu]# virsh undefine rhel5.4-x86_64-kvm
Domain rhel5.4-x86_64-kvm has been undefined
[root@humbles-lap qemu]# ls
networks rhel5.4-x86_64-kvm_backup.xml RHEL-5.xml rhevh.xml Window-2008.xml
[root@humbles-lap qemu]#
[/terminal]