how to assign partition as partition for KVM?

how to assign partition as partition for KVM?

[Толя]

Hello!

Is there any way to assign single partition to KVM virtual machine (for example, i need to assign /dev/sda1 on my host as /dev/hda1 on VM)
In XEN this assignment looks like disk=[ 'phy:/dev/lvm_dg-vol1,xvda1,w',].
I only have found a way of such representation through creation of linear RAID. Is there some less tricky method?

Thanks in advance and sorry if i picked up wrong e-mail address for this type of question.

Re: how to assign partition as partition for KVM?

[paolo pedaletti]

Ciao Толя,

> Is there any way to assign single partition to KVM virtual machine (for example, i need to assign /dev/sda1 on my host as /dev/hda1 on VM)
> In XEN this assignment looks like disk=[ 'phy:/dev/lvm_dg-vol1,xvda1,w',].

with LVM, you can do that:

kvm ..... -drive file=/dev/mapper/vm-root,if=scsi,index=0,boot=on ......

I think it should work even without LVM, for example:
kvm ..... -drive file=/dev/sda1,if=scsi,index=0,boot=on ......

-- 
Paolo Pedaletti

Re: how to assign partition as partition for KVM?

[Javier Guerra]

On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 3:05 AM, paolo pedaletti
<paolo.pedaletti@gmail.com> wrote:
> Ciao Толя,
>
>> Is there any way to assign single partition to KVM virtual machine (for example, i need to assign /dev/sda1 on my host as /dev/hda1 on VM)
>> In XEN this assignment looks like disk=[ 'phy:/dev/lvm_dg-vol1,xvda1,w',].
>
> with LVM, you can do that:
>
> kvm ..... -drive file=/dev/mapper/vm-root,if=scsi,index=0,boot=on ......
>
> I think it should work even without LVM, for example:
> kvm ..... -drive file=/dev/sda1,if=scsi,index=0,boot=on ......

the difference is that in KVM, the guest see a whole disk, not a partition.

no surprise, since Xen's HVM guests have the same limitation; only
paravirtualized guests can be assigned individual partitions.
remember that KVM is a 'fully virtualized' system, similar to HVM in
Xen.


-- 
Javier