Re: [Qemu-devel] feature idea: allow user to run custom scripts

[Programmingkid <programmingkidx@gmail.com>]

On Sep 27, 2015, at 10:30 PM, Michael Roth wrote:

> Quoting Programmingkid (2015-09-27 20:49:24)
>> 
>> On Sep 27, 2015, at 2:53 PM, Peter Crosthwaite wrote:
>> 
>>> On Sun, Sep 27, 2015 at 3:13 AM, Peter Maydell <peter.maydell@linaro.org> wrote:
>>>> On 27 September 2015 at 04:39, Programmingkid <programmingkidx@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Would you be open to a feature that allows the user to select
>>>>> and run a custom file that has commands in it that would run
>>>>> in the monitor?
>>>> 
>>>> Sounds like a VM management layer feature.
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> Should -monitor file:/foo/bar do something like this?
>> 
>> If you are saying this command line argument loads monitor commands,
>> then it would only work when QEMU is first started. The feature I want
>> would work anytime during the running of QEMU. 
> 
> For that sort of flexibility I think writing commands to a socket via
> a script/program is simple enough that an additional interface doesn't
> seem worthwhile. Even our qtest unit tests use this approach. Plus you
> get the flexibility of a being able to branch based on the return
> value of commands (error-handling, stateful commands, incorporating
> output from a serial console, etc.). It seems like a nice feature but
> it's vastly inferior to what's possible with an external driver.

How many people know how to communicate with QEMU via a socket?
How do you even do it? It doesn't sound very easy to do. A menu item
that displays a file open dialog is very easy to use. The user just selects
a file and QEMU loads and runs all the commands in it. This feature
would make QEMU easier to use. It would also make QEMU easily
expandable. Typing long commands in the monitor is difficult and
error prone. Saving these commands in a file would make it much
easier for the user. An example command someone could put in a
file is sending Control-Alt-Delete to the emulator. Another command
could be mounting an image file. This feature would make things
much easier for the user.