From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Avi Kivity Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] Re: Storing command line options in images Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 11:55:41 +0300 Message-ID: <46C01C8D.3060304@qumranet.com> References: <59abf66e0708092155t2e3cd5o32f23c018bed65af@mail.gmail.com> <46BC8C18.6020108@codemonkey.ws> <46BC9CDB.3080900@qumranet.com> <46BCB1DA.6060102@codemonkey.ws> <46BCBF73.5060406@qumranet.com> <46BCC666.6050406@codemonkey.ws> <59abf66e0708101841i76e26a35vcbc8df14b21f1ac0@mail.gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Cc: kvm-devel-5NWGOfrQmneRv+LV9MX5uipxlwaOVQ5f@public.gmane.org, qemu-devel-qX2TKyscuCcdnm+yROfE0A@public.gmane.org To: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jorge_Luc=E1ngeli_Obes?= Return-path: In-Reply-To: <59abf66e0708101841i76e26a35vcbc8df14b21f1ac0-JsoAwUIsXosN+BqQ9rBEUg@public.gmane.org> List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: kvm-devel-bounces-5NWGOfrQmneRv+LV9MX5uipxlwaOVQ5f@public.gmane.org Errors-To: kvm-devel-bounces-5NWGOfrQmneRv+LV9MX5uipxlwaOVQ5f@public.gmane.org List-Id: kvm.vger.kernel.org Jorge Luc=E1ngeli Obes wrote: >>> My feeling is that config files are outdated. When used with a gui, >>> you end up writing silly parsers and stuff and still wrecking things >>> horribly when the the gui writer's expectations don't match reality. >>> When used without a gui, they increase the amount of details one has >>> to remember (where's that config file? I renamed my image, did I >>> remember to update the config file?). They also make upgrading more >>> difficult. >>> = >> There's only so much that can be expressed on a command line. There are >> actually limits to the command line size on a lot of platforms. I don't >> see why reading options from a file is so much worse than reading them >> from the command line. >> = > > In my view, the bottom line is: we need an _easy_ way of launching VMs > when one doesn't want all the options of the managed approach. I back > Avi on this one, I would like to be able to do > > qemu guest.img > = Well, I disagree with Avi now. Dan's comment about guest images now = being untrusted is a killer. > without worrying about configuration files, or XML, or parsing. That's > not to say that a global configuration file for QEMU wouldn't be > useful, but I think it would solve a different problem. > > When I read Avi's TODO, I basically thought about getting rid of the > long command lines I had to store in scripts. I wanted to write that > command line once, and then forgetting about it, until I needed to > change it. I wanted an image to be self-contained as much as possible. > That's what I set to achieve. > > All that said, I rethought Anthony's idea of storing plain text in the > image and with proper tools, it can work out. I don't like the idea of > having users overwriting and padding files, but the approach seems > less of a hack than using empty snapshots. In short: I think we will > need to have something like 'qemu-img cmdline' anyways, independent of > the implementation. That's because I would like an implementation that > does not depend on extra files. For that, we already have libvirt and > the likes. > = I like the format-independent nature of Anthony's idea too. Basically = we're adding a meta-format that works along with all other formats. Anthony's other idea, to require self-contained images to be executable, = may be workable. I have some doubts that it is a sufficient indicator = of trust (though with normal shell scripts and executables it is). -- = error compiling committee.c: too many arguments to function ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Still grepping through log files to find problems? Stop. Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX and a browser. Download your FREE copy of Splunk now >> http://get.splunk.com/