From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:42596) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RQNR2-0007hd-PW for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Tue, 15 Nov 2011 13:08:44 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RQNQy-0004A8-GL for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Tue, 15 Nov 2011 13:08:40 -0500 Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([209.132.183.28]:57028) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RQNQy-0004A3-9C for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Tue, 15 Nov 2011 13:08:36 -0500 Message-ID: <4EC2AAA0.5010205@redhat.com> Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2011 13:08:32 -0500 From: Subhendu Ghosh MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <201111151924.41357.bazulay@redhat.com> <4EC2A8F6.2020406@redhat.com> In-Reply-To: <4EC2A8F6.2020406@redhat.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] converging around a single guest agent List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , To: Perry Myers Cc: Gal Hammer , Barak Azulay , arch@ovirt.org, qemu-devel@nongnu.org, vdsm-devel@lists.fedorahosted.org On 11/15/2011 01:01 PM, Perry Myers wrote: > On 11/15/2011 12:24 PM, Barak Azulay wrote: >> Hi, >> >> One of the breakout sessions during the ovirt workshop [1] was about the guest >> tools, and focused mainly on the ovirt-guest-agent [2]. >> >> One of the issues discussed there, was the various existing guest agents out >> there, and the need to converge the efforts to a single agent that will serve >> all. >> >> while 4 agents were mentioned (Matahari, vdagent, qemu-ga& ovirt-guest-agent) >> during that discussion, we narrowed it down to 2 candidates: >> >> qemu-ga (aka virt-agent): >> ------------------------- >> - Qemu specific - it was aimed for specific qemu needs (mainly quiesce guest >> I/O) >> - Communicates directly with qemu (not implemented yet) >> - Supports ? >> - So far linux only >> - written in C >> >> Ovirt-guest-agent: >> ------------------ >> - Has been around for a long time (~5 years) - considered stable >> - Started as rhevm specific but evolved a lot since then >> - Currently the only fully functional guest agent available for ovirt >> - Written in python >> - Some VDI related sub components are written in C& C++ >> - Supports a well defined list of message types / protocol [3] >> - Supports the folowing guest OSs >> Linux: RHEL5, RHEL6 F15, F16(soon) >> Windows: xp, 2k3 (32/64), w7 (32/64), 2k8 (32/64/R2) >> >> >> The need to converge is obvious, and now that ovirt-guest-agent is opensourced >> under the ovirt stack, and since it already produces value for enterprise >> installations, and is cross platform, I offer to join hands around ovirt- >> guest-agent and formalize a single code base that will serve us all. >> >> git @ git://gerrit.ovirt.org/ovirt-guest-agent >> >> Thoughts ? > > +1 > > The only downside that I concretely heard from folks re: > ovirt-guest-agent was that it is written in Python. Two thoughts there: > > 1. On Windows it is compiled to an executable, so no separate python > stack needed > > 2. ovirt-guest-agent is not very large and does not bring in a lot > (any?) additional python class dependencies above/beyond the core > language and interpreter. Given this, the chances of dealing with > python stack issues are probably minimal and also the overhead of > including _just_ the base python interpreter in a given guest OS is > very lightweight. Core python RPM in F16 is about 80k. > > Perry If you needed WMI enablement on Windows - could you support that with this arch?