FWN/Beats/Virtualization: Difference between revisions

Virtualization

In this section, we cover discussion of Fedora virtualization technologies on the @et-mgmnt-tools-list, @fedora-xen-list, @libvirt-list and @ovirt-devel-list lists.

Contributing Writer: Dale Bewley

Enterprise Management Tools List

This section contains the discussion happening on the et-mgmt-tools list

More Device Support in virt-manager 'Add Hardware' Wizard

Cole Robinson patched^[1] virt-manager to implement adding of virtual video devices in the 'Add Hardware' wizard. Cole also implemented^[2] attaching serial and parallel devices.

Both these features were added to virt-install^[3]. Serial ports can be directed to sockets listening on remote hosts. For example: --serial udp,host=192.168.10.20:4444.

Xen, Windows, and ACPI

Guido Günther noted^[1] that virt-install disables ACPI and APIC for Windows XP guests. Adding, that it seems "that Windows XP is working fine with acpi/apic enabled which has the immediate advantage that poweroff via ACPI works as expected. So does it make sense to handle winxp the same win2k3?"

Pasi Kärkkäinen went to the xen-devel list and confirmed^[2] and relayed "Keir Fraser replied that ACPI with Windows has been working properly at least since Xen 3.1.0 days". Pasi then updated the Xen wiki page^[3].

Fedora Virtualization List

This section contains the discussion happening on the fedora-virt list.

New Mailing List and New Releases of libguestfs

Richard Jones announced^[1] the creation of a new list^[2] dedicated to "libguestfs/guestfish/virt-inspector discussion/development".

The current release is now 1.0.57^[3], but Richard is so fast that may change by the time you read this.

Recent new features:

virt-df - like 'df' for virtual machines
New Perl library called Sys::Guestfs::Lib
Now available for EPEL
Tab completion in guestfish now completes files and devices
Big change to the code generator
Lots more regression tests
guestfish commands: time, glob, more, less
new commands: readdir, mknod*, umask, du, df*, head*, tail*, wc*, mkdtemp, scrub, sh, sh-lines.
Debian native^[4] (debootstrap, debirf) support

See previous release announcement for 1.0.14 in FWN#179^[5] and be sure to see the project homepage^[6] for extensive usage examples.

Fedora Virt Status Update

Mark McLoughlin posted^[1] another Fedora Virt Status Update reminding that Fedora 12 is quickly approaching with the Feature Freeze on 2009-07-28.

Also mentioned were:

Details of a fix for "a dramatic slowdown in virtio-blk performance in F-11 guests"^[2]
Note on Xen Dom0 support.
New wiki pages created.
Detailed run-down of current virt bugs.

USB Passthrough to Virtual Machines

Mark McLoughlin posted instructions^[1] for attaching a USB device to a guest using virt-manager in Fedora 11. This was could previously (FWN#165^[2]) be accomplished only on the command line by hand.

Unfortunately, those wishing to manage their iPhone in a guest (yours truly included), KVM does not yet support the required USB 2.

Libvirt List

This section contains the discussion happening on the libvir-list.

Fedora-Xen List

This section contains the discussion happening on the fedora-xen list.

Xen dom0 Forward Ported to Latest Kernel

Previously, Xen dom0 support in Fedora was provided by forward porting the Xensource patches from kernel 2.6.18 to the version found in the Fedora release at the time. This consumed developer resources and led to separate kernel and kernel-xen packages for a time. As of Fedora 9^[1] this practice was deamed^[2] untenable, and support for hosting Xen guests was dropped from Fedora.

Work has since focused on creating a paravirt operations dom0^[3] kernel based on the most recent upstream vanilla kernel. This work is incomplete and not expected to be done before F12 or even F13. However, experimental dom0 kernels^[4] have been created for the adventurous.

Pasi Kärkkäinen tells^[5] us the Xen 2.6.18 patches have now been forward-ported to the current 2.6.29 and 2.6.30 kernel. "Forward-porting has been done by Novell for OpenSUSE. Novell also has a forward-port to 2.6.27 for SLES11."

The patches can be found here^[6] here ^[7] and here^[8].

Pasi added "These patches are still more stable and mature than the pv_ops dom0 code.. Also, these patches have the full Xen feature set (pv_ops still lacks some features)."

More history is avilable^[9].

@@ Line 12: / Line 12: @@
 [http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/et-mgmt-tools et-mgmt-tools list]
-==== ====
+==== More Device Support in virt-manager 'Add Hardware' Wizard ====
+[[ColeRobinson|Cole Robinson]]
+patched<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2009-July/msg00013.html</ref>
+{{package|virt-manager}} to implement adding of virtual video devices in the
+'Add Hardware' wizard.  Cole also implemented<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2009-July/msg00012.html</ref> attaching serial and parallel devices.
+Both these features were added to
+{{package|python-virtinst|virt-install}}<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2009-July/msg00010.html</ref>. Serial ports can be directed to sockets listening on remote hosts. For example: <code>--serial udp,host=192.168.10.20:4444</code>.
+<references />
+==== Xen, Windows, and ACPI ====
+[[GuidoGünther|Guido Günther]]
+noted<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2009-July/msg00000.html</ref>
+that <code>virt-install</code> disables ACPI and APIC for Windows XP guests.
+Adding, that it seems "that Windows XP is working fine with acpi/apic enabled which has
+the immediate advantage that poweroff via ACPI works as expected.
+So does it make sense to handle winxp the same win2k3?"
+[[PasiKärkkäinen|Pasi Kärkkäinen]]
+went to the xen-devel list and confirmed<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2009-July/msg00007.html</ref>
+and relayed "Keir Fraser replied that ACPI with Windows has been working properly at least since Xen 3.1.0 days".
+Pasi then updated the Xen wiki page<ref>http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenWindowsACPI</ref>.
 <references />

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