Line 137: | Line 137: | ||
relatively fast release cycle is needed. So expect 0.6.2 in a month | relatively fast release cycle is needed. So expect 0.6.2 in a month | ||
or so." | or so." | ||
<references /> | |||
==== sVirt Support Committed ==== | |||
Daniel P. Berrange applied<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-March/msg00092.html</ref> the <code>sVirt</code><ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SVirt_Mandatory_Access_Control</ref> patches to enable <code>selinux</code> support in <code>libvirt</code>. | |||
<references /> | |||
==== Secure Guest Migration Between Hosts ==== | |||
Chris Lalancette posted<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-March/msg00094.html</ref> a request for comments on secure migration with an initial focus on <code>Qemu</code>. The proposal included two options. One leveraged existing RPC while the second created a new well known port to handle the migration. Using RPC adds a layer of authenitcation which may possibly be avoided in the second option by simply opening a new port in a firewall. | |||
Sticking with existing RPC and enhancing<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-March/msg00148.html</ref> the authentication system for migration seemed to be the concensus. | |||
<references /> | |||
==== Hynesim Project Interest in Libvirt ==== | |||
Florian Vichot of the Hynesim<ref>http://www.hynesim.org</ref> project was | |||
interested<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-March/msg00115.html</ref> in replacing their wrappers around <code>KVM</code>, VirtualBox, and OpenVZ with <code>libvirt</code>, and so asked about support for a number of features including auxiliary TAP devices in the host to correspond with ethernet devices in the guest. | |||
<references /> | <references /> |
Revision as of 02:39, 9 March 2009
Virtualization
In this section, we cover discussion on the @et-mgmnt-tools-list, @fedora-xen-list, @libvirt-list and @ovirt-devel-list of Fedora virtualization technologies.
Contributing Writer: Dale Bewley
Enterprise Management Tools List
This section contains the discussion happening on the et-mgmt-tools list
Managing Guest OS Types
Cole Robinson created[1] a patch to provide a --list-os-options
option to virt-install
and virt-convert
. Output from this option would be used to help users determine the appropriate argument for --os-type
.
The --os-type
option is used to
"Optimize the guest configuration for a type of operating system. This will
attempt to pick the most suitable ACPI & APIC settings, optimally supported
mouse drivers and generally accommodate other operating system quirks."
This touched off a discussion[2] of how such information is managed. Daniel P. Berrange pointed out shortcomings in the current approach and perscribed the following fixes, and supplied an example XML file.
- An XML schema for defining all the information wrt to guest OS distros that is relevant to virt management tools.
- A C library for querying the information in the XML file(s).
- Bindings of the C library into Python/Ruby etc as needed
- Ability for local admins to extend / override the information either by editing the XML files directly, or a pretty GUI
Cole later dropped[3] his patch and automated[4] the creation of the OS list in the virt-install
man page instead.
virt-manager Storage Removal
A patch[1] from Cole Robinson "adds a storage aware delete dialog to virt-manager. When deleting a VM, we are presented with a list of storage attached to it, with an option to remove individual disks as part of the delete process."
virt-install Host Device Assignment Support
Cole Robinson added[1] "support for host device assignment to virtinst
and virt-install
.
This adds a --host-device
[2] command to
"Attach a physical host device to the guest. HOSTDEV is a node device name
as used by libvirt (as shown by 'virsh nodedev-list')."
Daniel P. Berrange described[3] the management options for host devices.
- "If 'managed=yes' then libvirt will automatically detach the device from the host driver."
- "If 'managed=no' then libvirt expects that the caller has already ensured the device is detached from the host before *ALL* attempts to start the guest, now & in the future."
This change supports the KVM PCI Device Assignment feature[4] in Fedora 11.
Fedora Virtualization List
This section contains the discussion happening on the fedora-virt list.
User Interface Makeover for virt-manager
Daniel P. Berrange pointed[1] out
"there's a significant redesign of
in progress" and brought
attention to Cole Robinson's 'New VM' wizard makeover[2].
Daniel added
"Many more design improvements are targetted for the next few virt-manager
releases, impacting nearly every area of the UI, so keep an eye out for
more UI review postings during F12 timeframe too."
virt-manager
New Release virtinst 0.4.2
Cole Robinson announced[1] a new virtinst
release, version 0.400.2.
is a module that helps build and install python-virtinst
libvirt
based virtual
machines. It currently supports KVM
, QEmu
and Xen
virtual machines. Package
includes several command line utilities, including virt-install
(build
and install new VMs) and virt-clone
(clone an existing virtual machine).
New features:
- New
virt-clone
option--original-xml
, allows cloning a guest from an xml file, rather than require an existing, defined guest. - New
virt-install
option--import
, allows creating a guest from an existing disk image, bypassing any OS install phase. - New
virt-install
option--host-device
, for connecting a physical host device to the guest. - Allow specifying 'cache' value via
virt-install
's--disk
options (Ben Kochie) - New
virt-install
option--nonetworks
(John Levon) - Lots of backend cleanups and documentation improvements.
Fedora Xen List
This section contains the discussion happening on the fedora-xen list.
dom0 Kernel Inches Closer
Pasi Kärkkäinen walked[1] the bleeding edge while testing Xen dom0 host support. Using Fedora 10 with Xen 3.3.1-9 from Rawhide and a custom built 2.6.29-rc7 pv_ops dom0 kernel the system boots, but virt-install
and virt-manager
fail with the error "Unsupported virtualization type 'xen'
".
It seems[2] that /sys/hypervisor/properties/capabilities
is not present for some unknown reason.
Libvirt List
This section contains the discussion happening on the libvir-list.
New Release libvirt 0.6.1
Daniel Veillard announced[1] a new
release, version 0.6.1.
libvirt
Libvirt
is a C
toolkit to interact with the virtualization capabilities of recent versions of Linux (and other OSes).
New features:
- new APIs for Node device detach reattach and reset (Mark McLoughlin)
sVirt
[2] mandatory access control support (James Morris and Dan Walsh)
Improvements:
- don't hardcode ssh port (Guido Gunther)
- new test cases and testing infrastructure (Jim Meyering)
- improve the SExpr parser (John Levon)
- proper error reporting on
xend
shutdown command (John Levon) - proper handling of errors when saving
QEmu
domains state (Guido Gunther) - revamp of the internal error memory APIs (John Levon)
- better
virsh
error reporting (John Levon) - more daemon options to allow running multiple daemons (Jim Meyering)
- error handling when creating a
QEmu
domain (Guido Gunther) - fix timeouts in
QEmu
log reading (Guido Gunther) - migration with
xend
3.3 fixes (John Levon) virsh
XML dump flags cleanup (Cole Robinson)- fix build with loadable drivers (Maximilian Wilhelm)
- internal XML APIs to read long long and hexa values (Mark McLoughlin)
- function to parse node device XML descriptions and associated test (Mark McLoughlin)
- generate network bridge names if not provided (Cole Robinson)
- recognize ejectable media in hostdev hal driver (Cole Robinson)
- integration of
sVirt
(Daniel Berrange)
There were also dozens of cleanups, documentation enhancements, portability and bug fixes.
With about five weeks since the release of 0.6.0[3], Daniel added "So quite a bit of changes happened in one month of development, so it's getting clear we aren't really slowing down and keeping a relatively fast release cycle is needed. So expect 0.6.2 in a month or so."
sVirt Support Committed
Daniel P. Berrange applied[1] the sVirt
[2] patches to enable selinux
support in libvirt
.
Secure Guest Migration Between Hosts
Chris Lalancette posted[1] a request for comments on secure migration with an initial focus on Qemu
. The proposal included two options. One leveraged existing RPC while the second created a new well known port to handle the migration. Using RPC adds a layer of authenitcation which may possibly be avoided in the second option by simply opening a new port in a firewall.
Sticking with existing RPC and enhancing[2] the authentication system for migration seemed to be the concensus.
Hynesim Project Interest in Libvirt
Florian Vichot of the Hynesim[1] project was
interested[2] in replacing their wrappers around KVM
, VirtualBox, and OpenVZ with libvirt
, and so asked about support for a number of features including auxiliary TAP devices in the host to correspond with ethernet devices in the guest.