Re: [PATCH] vmdk: allow specification of tools version

[Eric Blake <eblake@redhat.com>]

On Wed, Sep 08, 2021 at 07:42:50PM +0200, Thomas Weißschuh wrote:
> VMDK files support an attribute that represents the version of the guest
> tools that are installed on the disk.
> This attribute is used by vSphere before a machine has been started to
> determine if the VM has the guest tools installed.
> This is important when configuring "Operating system customizations" in
> vSphere, as it checks for the presence of the guest tools before
> allowing those customizations.
> Thus when the VM has not yet booted normally it would be impossible to
> customize it, therefore preventing a customized first-boot.
> 
> The attribute should not hurt on disks that do not have the guest tools
> installed and indeed the VMware tools also unconditionally add this
> attribute.
> (Defaulting to the value "2147483647", as is done in this patch)
> 
> Signed-off-by: Thomas Weißschuh <thomas.weissschuh.ext@zeiss.com>
> ---
>  block/vmdk.c         | 24 ++++++++++++++++++++----
>  qapi/block-core.json |  2 ++
>  2 files changed, 22 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

UI review:

> +++ b/qapi/block-core.json
> @@ -4597,6 +4597,7 @@
>  # @adapter-type: The adapter type used to fill in the descriptor. Default: ide.
>  # @hwversion: Hardware version. The meaningful options are "4" or "6".
>  #             Default: "4".
> +# @toolsversion: VMware guest tools version.

Missing a '(since 6.2)' blurb, and a description of its default value.

>  # @zeroed-grain: Whether to enable zeroed-grain feature for sparse subformats.
>  #                Default: false.
>  #
> @@ -4610,6 +4611,7 @@
>              '*backing-file':    'str',
>              '*adapter-type':    'BlockdevVmdkAdapterType',
>              '*hwversion':       'str',
> +            '*toolsversion':    'str',

Is it an arbitrary string, or must a valid value always be parseable
as a numeric value?  If the latter, then make the QMP representation
numeric rather than string.

-- 
Eric Blake, Principal Software Engineer
Red Hat, Inc.           +1-919-301-3266
Virtualization:  qemu.org | libvirt.org