[Qemu-devel] config file support

[Qemu-devel] config file support

[Chuck Brazie]

Is there any work going on now to add config file support?

Chuck Brazie 
brazie@us.ibm.com

[Qemu-devel] Re: config file support

[Anthony Liguori]

Chuck Brazie wrote:
> Is there any work going on now to add config file support?

It's been discussed.  I think Fabrice had some ideas too.  AFAIK, noone
is actively working on implementing it though.

Regards,

Anthony Liguori

> Chuck Brazie 
> brazie@us.ibm.com

Re: [Qemu-devel] Re: config file support

[Fabrice Bellard]

Anthony Liguori wrote:
> Chuck Brazie wrote:
> 
>> Is there any work going on now to add config file support?
> 
> 
> It's been discussed.  I think Fabrice had some ideas too.  AFAIK, noone
> is actively working on implementing it though.

I want to implement it ASAP and it is likely to be the next feature I 
will add in QEMU.

Regards,

Fabrice.

Re: [Qemu-devel] config file support

[Rob Landley]

On Wednesday 18 October 2006 2:42 pm, Chuck Brazie wrote:
> Is there any work going on now to add config file support?
> 
> Chuck Brazie 
> brazie@us.ibm.com

As a random end-user, I really like being able to run qemu without a config 
file, configuring it entirely on the command line.  I'd be highly 
disappointed if qemu turned into another Wine.

Rob
-- 
"Perfection is reached, not when there is no longer anything to add, but
when there is no longer anything to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Re: [Qemu-devel] config file support

[Christian MICHON]

On 10/22/06, Rob Landley <rob@landley.net> wrote:
> As a random end-user, I really like being able to run qemu without a config
> file, configuring it entirely on the command line.  I'd be highly
> disappointed if qemu turned into another Wine.
>
> Rob

we've a lot to gain from it. Think twice: the shell and the host you use
behaves in a certain way because of the way you write the command line.

Migrate to a different OS for the host and you might be done for: I
believe the config file support will help solving problems and debug,
but most important will help promote qemu usage to the rest of
the community (understand: non-developpers).

Rob: you're far from being a random user, right ? :)

-- 
Christian

Re: [Qemu-devel] config file support

[Jan Marten Simons]

In my opinion config files should _always only_ be *an alternative* to a
long command line.

Basically you should be able to do anything with both configuration
options, be it command line or a config file (or a combination of both).

Ciao,
Jan

Christian MICHON schrieb:
> On 10/22/06, Rob Landley <rob@landley.net> wrote:
>> As a random end-user, I really like being able to run qemu without a
>> config
>> file, configuring it entirely on the command line.  I'd be highly
>> disappointed if qemu turned into another Wine.
>>
>> Rob
>
> we've a lot to gain from it. Think twice: the shell and the host you use
> behaves in a certain way because of the way you write the command line.
>
> Migrate to a different OS for the host and you might be done for: I
> believe the config file support will help solving problems and debug,
> but most important will help promote qemu usage to the rest of
> the community (understand: non-developpers).
>
> Rob: you're far from being a random user, right ? :)
>

Re: [Qemu-devel] config file support

[Paul Brook]

On Monday 23 October 2006 12:48, Jan Marten Simons wrote:
> In my opinion config files should _always only_ be *an alternative* to a
> long command line.
>
> Basically you should be able to do anything with both configuration
> options, be it command line or a config file (or a combination of both).

Part of the motivation for wanting a config file is that it's more flexible 
and allows more complicated configs than just commandline options.
For that reason I'd expect the commandline to only offer a subset of the 
features available via a config file.

You can always write a wrapper script that generates a config file.

Paul

Re: [Qemu-devel] config file support

[K. Richard Pixley]

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Rob Landley wrote:
> On Wednesday 18 October 2006 2:42 pm, Chuck Brazie wrote:
>   
>> Is there any work going on now to add config file support?
>>
>> Chuck Brazie 
>> brazie@us.ibm.com
>>     
> As a random end-user, I really like being able to run qemu without a config 
> file, configuring it entirely on the command line.  I'd be highly 
> disappointed if qemu turned into another Wine.
Except that I never do.  Instead, I write a trivial shell script since I 
can never remember the command line options, much less type them in 
consistently.

What's the difference between a shell script to cover qemu and a 
#!/bin/qemu config file?  Seems to me they both address roughly the same 
issues with roughly the same considerations.  Am I missing any 
significant functionality differences?

--rich

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Re: [Qemu-devel] config file support

[Rob Landley]

On Monday 23 October 2006 1:50 pm, K. Richard Pixley wrote:
> Rob Landley wrote:
> > On Wednesday 18 October 2006 2:42 pm, Chuck Brazie wrote:
> >   
> >> Is there any work going on now to add config file support?
> >>
> >> Chuck Brazie 
> >> brazie@us.ibm.com
> >>     
> > As a random end-user, I really like being able to run qemu without a 
config 
> > file, configuring it entirely on the command line.  I'd be highly 
> > disappointed if qemu turned into another Wine.
> Except that I never do.  Instead, I write a trivial shell script since I 
> can never remember the command line options, much less type them in 
> consistently.
> 
> What's the difference between a shell script to cover qemu and a 
> #!/bin/qemu config file?

The shell script works now, and you're proposing breaking it?

> Seems to me they both address roughly the same  
> issues with roughly the same considerations.

Using a *.PIF file is the Windows way.  Using the command line is Linux.

> Am I missing any significant functionality differences?

So you'd have no trouble configuring kde's file type associations to open 
arbitrary "*.img" files with qemu when you click on them if you couldn't do 
this entirely from the command line?
 
> --rich

Rob
-- 
"Perfection is reached, not when there is no longer anything to add, but
when there is no longer anything to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Re: [Qemu-devel] config file support

[Paul Brook]

> > Seems to me they both address roughly the same
> > issues with roughly the same considerations.
>
> Using a *.PIF file is the Windows way.  Using the command line is Linux.

There's plenty of prior art for using config files on unix/linux systems.

I'm not saying we should remove all commandline options. However qemu is 
growing sufficiently many user-adjustable knobs that manipulating them all 
solely via the commandline gets unwieldy. IMHO there's a limit to how much 
information can/should be usefully expressed on the commandline, and qemu is 
approaching that limit.

Paul

Re: [Qemu-devel] config file support

[K. Richard Pixley]

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Rob Landley wrote:
>> What's the difference between a shell script to cover qemu and a 
>> #!/bin/qemu config file?
>>     
> The shell script works now, and you're proposing breaking it?
>   
No, I'm not.  I'm genuinely asking about functional differences.
>> Am I missing any significant functionality differences?
>>     
> So you'd have no trouble configuring kde's file type associations to open 
> arbitrary "*.img" files with qemu when you click on them if you couldn't do 
> this entirely from the command line?
>   
I don't use kde.  And *.img is used for far too many file types to 
assume that this alone indicates that any foo.img is a qemu related file.

But yes, I could configure gnome to do this.  Or firefox.  It's pretty 
much trivial.  MacosX has file system metadata to help out so that it 
doesn't have to rely solely on the irrelevant file name suffixes.

--rich

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Re: [Qemu-devel] config file support

[M. Warner Losh]

In message: <200610231639.00717.rob@landley.net>
            Rob Landley <rob@landley.net> writes:
: > Seems to me they both address roughly the same  
: > issues with roughly the same considerations.
: 
: Using a *.PIF file is the Windows way.  Using the command line is Linux.

Except for complicated things, like, say, X's config file.

Warner

Re: [Qemu-devel] config file support

[André Braga]

On 10/23/06, K. Richard Pixley <rich.pixley@palmsource.com> wrote:
>  What's the difference between a shell script to cover qemu and a
> #!/bin/qemu config file?

Not everyone may run QEMU under a POSIX-ish command-line shell. There
are several active operating systems in the world, and several people
fiddling with the porting of QEMU to those systems.

What I'd really like to see, for example, would be the possibility of
dumping the options active when QEMU was started to a config file. It
could be then tweaked at will, but the skeleton would be there
already, customized to a pretty comfortable point even.

[Qemu-devel] Config file support

[Chuck Brazie]

Fabrice,

What are your ideas on the syntax of the config file? Will it be XML based 
or similar to the current options?

Chuck Brazie 
brazie@us.ibm.com

Re: [Qemu-devel] Config file support

[Flavio Visentin]

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Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> So _I_ think that it is just a matter of extending the command line option 
> parsing to also be able to parse a config file (in which case -- I am sure 
> even you agree) it is easier if one line holds a complete key/value pair.

I think reinventing the wheel is not so clever.
VMWare's config file style is really simple and it would be possible to
use VMWare's files with few or no changes.

One useful thing is to be able to use the #!/usr/bin/qemu feature :-)

- --
Flavio Visentin
GPG Key: http://www.zipman.it/gpgkey.asc

There are only 10 types of people in this world:
those who understand binary, and those who don't.
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Re: [Qemu-devel] Config file support

[Martin Guy]

> VMWare's config file style is really simple

ethernet0.present = "TRUE"
ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000"
e1000bios.filename = "path/etherboot-for-E1000"

> and it would be possible to
> use VMWare's files with few or no changes.

Would that be enough to be able to move the emulated system
description into config files rather than having the set of hard-coded
machine alternatives we have at present? If so it would be a boon to
anyone wanting to emulate, frinstance, any ARM board other than those
manufactured by ARM Corp.

Re: [Qemu-devel] Config file support

[Paul Brook]

> Would that be enough to be able to move the emulated system
> description into config files rather than having the set of hard-coded
> machine alternatives we have at present? If so it would be a boon to
> anyone wanting to emulate, frinstance, any ARM board other than those
> manufactured by ARM Corp.

To a first approximation the machine description probably wants to be separate 
from the user config file. There is some overlap and interlinking, but they 
tend to be aimed at different users. eg. the machine description will specify 
a particular scsi HBA with a MMIO address and wired to a particular IRQ, 
whereas the user just specifies they want a cdrom using a particular image.

I've been considering a machine config file for a while, but haven't come up 
with a coherent way of representing everything yet.

Paul

[Qemu-devel] Re: Config file support

[Antti P Miettinen]

Paul Brook <paul@codesourcery.com> writes:
> I've been considering a machine config file for a while, but haven't come up 
> with a coherent way of representing everything yet.

M5 uses python scripts (as does VirtuTech Simics) but that might not
be a good fit for qemu.

-- 
http://www.iki.fi/~ananaza/