@lmr Does there any caller exist passing remote_ip, remote_pwd or remote_user to call service_libvirtd_control()? AFAIK, there is only one caller in tp-libvirt.virsh_iface_trans.py. And it call service_libvirtd_control() to start libvirtd on local host, without any remote parameter.

What I mean here is that does we really need to add remote_xxx parameters to service_libvirtd_control() as it is not an sugguested way to manage libvirtd service? (If they are not deprecated as you explained in https://github.com/autotest/virt-test/pull/1569, we can keep them as they are short and simple. But at least they are not sugguested.)

IMO, utils_libvirtd.libvirtd_xxx and utils_libvirtd.service_libvirtd_control() is used to manage libvirtd service on local host.So we can use the module variable global_libvirtd in it. If we need to control remote host(or guest), I sugguest to use class utils_libvirtd.Libvirtd. This is the similar way with other service module such as NFS. We can make it as a standard usage of service module in autotest/virt-test. 

So, I think the function service_libvirtd_control() is here just for the compatibility, we should avoid to use it in new code. If no, at least we should make it used limitedly, only for local host. 

Does it make sence?