Re: [libvirt] esx driver: XML format for guest OS type/variant

On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 03:51:04PM -0700, Eric Blake wrote: > [adding Richard Jones, as he is more familiar with OS inspection] > > On 01/12/2011 03:29 PM, Matthias Bolte wrote: > > > > One thing I wonder about is, where to get the list of possible values > > for the guest OS type and variation from? Do we use what > > virt-install/virt-manager currently use and map that onto the fixed > > guest OS types (and variations) that VMware and VirtualBox understand > > in the ESX/VMware and VirtualBox driver? Or do we expose the list of > > possible values in driver capabilities? Or ... > > I imagine it should either be via some sort of .xml file (similar to > libvirt's cpu_map.xml used for determining valid cpu models), or via > linking in a common shared library that can share the work among > multiple clients.  IIRC, there is work under way to provide a library to > standardize on detection and description of various operating systems > installed in a guest, but I cannot seem to quickly find a reference to > such a library at the moment. The library is libosinfo: https://fedorahosted.org/libosinfo/ http://git.fedorahosted.org/git/?p=libosinfo.git;a=summary Despite patchy development efforts by several people, it hasn't really gained much traction.  I'm not even sure if we are using it in libvirt or virt-manager which was the original intent. For virt-inspector we classify OSes very simply using two text strings: http://libguestfs.org/virt-inspector.1.html#_operatingsystem_ <name> (which corresponds to http://libguestfs.org/guestfs.3.html#guestfs_inspect_get_type in the API) is "linux" or "windows". <distro> (http://libguestfs.org/guestfs.3.html#guestfs_inspect_get_distro) is one of a small set of distro strings. I don't know the best way to do what you want, but I will say there are many different aspects to inspection, and one size won't fit all. For example:  - OS type  - OS distro  - installer location  - how to download and install  - preferred devices to expose to a new installation  - does it support virtio?  - what applications are installed in a particular instance?  - what device drivers are installed in a particular instance?  - licensing requirements Rich.