Re: KVM usability

Anthony Liguori
2010-03-04T20:34:17Z

On 03/04/2010 02:13 PM, Zachary Amsden wrote:
>
> The biggest problem with virt-manager isn't virt-manager, it's that it
> is trying to do a nearly intractable task. Because a qemu virtual
> machine is not a machine at all, just a disk image without the proper
> metadata to track the important properties of the machine, like what
> revision of PCI chipset, how many disk controllers the thing is using,
> what kind of graphics card, etc.
>
> These are all basic things that are left completely undefined by
> qemu's lack of a top-level configuration file, and it's an inexcusable
> disgrace.
>
> So virt-manager or any other management tool has the burden of
> creating and maintaining a bunch of metadata around this workhorse
> tool called qemu and invoking libvirt to figure out which set of
> 100,000 blasted command line options to pass on.
>
> That's why it falls short of expectations at times, not because
> virt-manager is crap, but because there is no well defined, well
> designed infrastructure for it to manage and the ad-hoc solution here
> is total crap.

And this is why we're doing QMP and qdev. It's long overdue
infrastructure. It's not just the problem that you describe though.
virt-manager is limited by what libvirt provides and today libvirt does
not expose nearly enough qemu features for virt-manager to even attempt
to solve the problem on it's own.

Regards,

Anthony Liguori

> Zach