From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jamie Lokier Subject: Re: [et-mgmt-tools] Re: [libvirt] RE: [Qemu-devel] [ANNOUNCE] virt-mem tools version 0.2.8 released Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2008 02:28:27 +0100 Message-ID: <20080810012827.GD20183@shareable.org> References: <20080806200024.GA13809@amd.home.annexia.org> <20080807104739.GN32548@redhat.com> <20080807130627.GA28036@amd.home.annexia.org> <90eb1dc70808070730q61ad5054r1796f8ce2ea73490@mail.gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: "Richard W.M. Jones" , Alexey Eremenko , kvm@vger.kernel.org, Fedora/Linux Management Tools , libvir-list@redhat.com, Jun Koi To: qemu-devel@nongnu.org Return-path: Received: from mail2.shareable.org ([80.68.89.115]:58618 "EHLO mail2.shareable.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752204AbYHJB2c (ORCPT ); Sat, 9 Aug 2008 21:28:32 -0400 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <90eb1dc70808070730q61ad5054r1796f8ce2ea73490@mail.gmail.com> Sender: kvm-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: Javier Guerra wrote: > On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 8:06 AM, Richard W.M. Jones wrote: > > I think the message here is, install libvirt & be happy :-) > > nice as this tool sounds, i would need far more than this to make me > switch from a simple, easily scriptable command-line to a generic, > 'lowest common', solution like libvirt. > > of course, i hope it keeps getting better. who knows? maybe in a year > or so it would be comparable to the CLI. Regrettably I agree for the moment. I ended up writing a Perl management script for my KVM VMs because libvirt was just too muddled and limited for my needs, and because the config file format confused me, didn't handle everything I needed, and I didn't find clear documentation on it. Also, I wanted to import existing guests from another VM, and libvirt's tools seemed strongly geared around creating new VMs to use with libvirt. So I had to write config files for it - see above. I like the idea of libvirt a lot and wish it well. My own Perl script was a nightmare to write even though it's not so long (synchronisation & monitor issues especially), so I respect what's done. It's a good goal. But I just found it too confusing to use in the ways I needed to use KVM, that I gave up on libvirt for now rather than spend the considerable time to get to grips with what it's doing, and it's config format. What would be nicer is a VM management protocol build in to QEMU, KVM and XEN, which is a bit like the monitor, but supports multiple client connections and overlapping operations (where reasonable), and is a bit more structured, so e.g. you can get the state of anything whose state you can set, you can wait for events, etc. The somewhat object-based config file work that's been discussed not long ago would be a good thing to structure it around. -- Jamie