On 03/22/2010 05:33 PM, Gerd Hoffmann wrote:
Hi,
Stepping back a bit first, there are the two core areas in which people can be limited by libvirt currently.
2. Command line flags
For me: This one, and monitor access.
libvirt is very unfriendly to qemu hackers. There is no easy way to add command line switches. There is no easy way to get access to the monitor. I can get it done by pointing <emulator> to a wrapper script and mangle the qemu command line there. But this sucks big time. And it doesn't integrate with libvirt at all.
When hacking qemu, especially when adding new command line options or monitor commands, I want to have a easy way to test this stuff. Or I just wanna able to type some 'info $foo' commands for debugging and trouble shooting purposes. libvirt makes it harder not easier to get the job done.
Image you could ask libvirt to create an additional monitor and expose it like a serial console. virt-manager lists it as text console. Two mouse clicks open a new window (or tab) with a terminal emulator linked to the monitor. Wouldn't that be cool?
Other issues I've trap into:
-boot libvirt (or virt-manager?) supports only the very old single letter style. You can't specify '-boot order=cd,menu=on'.
Libvirt has supported multiple boot options for a while, it just wasn't in virt-manager. It's been upstream for a few weeks now though, and a new release is coming in a matter of days. I have a half implemented libvirt patch to allow setting boot menu, I guess it's time to dust it off :)
-enable-nested not available.
serial console doesn't work for remote connections.
Both of these have been requested a few times, so you aren't alone. - Cole