Re: [libvirt] (no subject)

Hi, all This is a basic implementation of libvirt Native Linux KVM Tool driver. Note that this is just made with my own interest and spare time, it's not an endorsement/effort by Red Hat, and it isn't supported by Red Hat officially. Basically, the driver is designed as *stateful*, as KVM tool doesn't maintain any info about the guest except a socket which for its own IPC. And it's implemented by using KVM tool binary, which is name "kvm" currently, along with cgroup controllers "cpuacct", and "memory" support. And as one of KVM tool's pricinple is to allow both the non-root and root user to play with. The driver is designed to support root and non-root too, just like QEMU does. Example of the connection URI: virsh -c kvmtool:///system virsh -c kvmtool:///session virsh -c kvmtool+unix:///system virsh -c kvmtool+unix:///session The implementation can support more or less than 15 virsh commands currently, including basic domain cycle operations (define/undefine, start/destroy, suspend/resume, console, setmem, schedinfo, dumpxml, ,autostart, dominfo, etc.) About the domain configuration: * "kernel": must be specified as KVM tool only support boots from the kernel currently (no integration with BIOS app yet). * "disk": only virtio bus is supported, and device type must be 'disk'. * "serial/console": only one console is supported, of type serial or virtio (can extend to support multiple console as long as kvm tool supports, libvirt already supported mutiple console, see upstream commit 0873b688c). * "p9fs": only support specifying the source dir, and mount tag, only type of 'mount' is supported. * "memballoon": only virtio is supported, and there is no way to config the addr. * Multiple "disk" and "p9fs" is supported. * Graphics and network are not supported, will explain below. Please see "[PATCH 7/8]" for an example of the domain config. (which contains all the XMLs supported by current implementation). The problems of Native Linux KVM Tool from libvirt p.o.v: * Some destros package "qemu-kvm" as "kvm", also "kvm" is a long established name for "KVM" itself, so naming the project as "kvm" might be not a good idea. I assume it will be named as "kvmtool" in this implementation, never mind this if you don't like that, it can be updated easily. :-)

* It still doesn't have an official package yet, even no "make install". means we have no way to check the dependancy and do the checking when 'configure'. I assume it will be installed as "/usr/bin/kvmtool" in this implementation. This is the main reason which can prevents upstream libvirt accepting the patches I guess.

* Lacks of options for user's configuration, such as "-vnc", there is no option for user to configure the properties for the "vnc", such as the port. It hides things, doesn't provide ways to query the properties too, this causes problems for libvirt to add the vnc support, as vnc clients such as virt-manager, virt-viewer, have no way to connect the guest. Even vncviewer can't.

* KVM tool manages the network completely itself (with DHCP support?), no way to configure, except specify the modes (user|tap|none). I have not test it yet, but it should need explicit script to setup the network rules(e.g. NAT) for the guest access outside world. Anyway, there is no way for libvirt to control the guest network.

* There is a gap about the domain status between KVM tool and libvirt, it's caused by KVM tool unlink()s the guest socket when user exits from console (both text and graphic), but libvirt still think the guest is running.

* KVM tool uses $HOME/.kvm_tool as the state dir, and no way to configure, I made a small patch to allow KVM tool accept a ENV variable, which is "KVM_STATE_DIR", it's used across the driver. I made a simple patch against kvm tool to let the whole patches work. See "[PATCH] kvm tools.....". As generally we want the state dir of a driver can be "/var/run/libvirt/kvmtool/..." for root user or "$HOME/.libvirt/kvmtool/run" for non-root user.

* kvmtoolGetVersion is just broken now, as what "./kvm version" returns is something like "3.0.rc5.873.gb73216", however, libvirt wants things like "2.6.40.6-0". This might be not a problem as long as KVM tool has a official package.

* console connection is implemented by setup ptys in libvirt, stdout/stderr of kvm tool process is redirected to the master pty, and libvirt connects to the slave pty. This works fine now, but it might be better if kvm tool could provide more advanced console mechanisms. Just like QEMU does?

* Not much ways existed yet for external apps or user to query the guest informations. But this might be changed soon per KVM tool grows up quickly.