FWN/Beats/Virtualization

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.

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 virt-manager 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."

New Release virtinst 0.4.2

Cole Robinson announced^[1] a new virtinst release, version 0.400.2.

python-virtinst is a module that helps build and install 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.

↑ http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-virt/2009-March/msg00002.html

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.

oVirt Devel List

This section contains the discussion happening on the ovirt-devel list.

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