[libvirt] VMware ESX: Allow ethernet address type 'vpx'
The VMX entry ethernet0.addressType may be set to 'vpx' beside 'static' and 'generated'. 'vpx' indicates that the MAC address was generated by a vCenter. The attached patch adds 'vpx' to the valid values for ethernet0.addressType. Matthias
From: libvir-list-bounces@redhat.com [mailto:libvir-list- bounces@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Matthias Bolte
The VMX entry ethernet0.addressType may be set to 'vpx' beside 'static' and 'generated'. 'vpx' indicates that the MAC address was generated by a vCenter.
The attached patch adds 'vpx' to the valid values for ethernet0.addressType.
Matthias [IH] can you please explain the interaction (if any) between the ESX driver and vCenter which this patch implies may be working with same ESX servers?
Thanks, Itamar
2009/8/10 Itamar Heim <iheim@redhat.com>:
From: libvir-list-bounces@redhat.com [mailto:libvir-list- bounces@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Matthias Bolte
The VMX entry ethernet0.addressType may be set to 'vpx' beside 'static' and 'generated'. 'vpx' indicates that the MAC address was generated by a vCenter.
The attached patch adds 'vpx' to the valid values for ethernet0.addressType.
Matthias
[IH] can you please explain the interaction (if any) between the ESX driver and vCenter which this patch implies may be working with same ESX servers?
Thanks, Itamar
The ESX driver parses the VMX file of a virtual machine to gather the information needed for the dump XML function. The VMX entry ethernet0.addressType maybe set to vpx if the generated MAC address was generated by a vCenter and not by the ESX host itself. No direct interaction between the ESX driver and a vCenter happens in this case. But there is direct interaction between the ESX driver and a vCenter if you order the ESX driver to migrate a virtual machine from ESX host A to ESX host B. An ESX host itself is not capable of initiating a migration to another ESX host. Both hosts must be attached to the same vCenter and the vCenter initiates and controls the migration. So the ESX driver needs to know the vCenter for a ESX host in order to do a migration. Therefore the ESX driver URI format contains an vcenter query parameter. More detailed documentation in HTML form will be added soon. Matthias
From: Matthias Bolte [mailto:matthias.bolte@googlemail.com] ...
The ESX driver parses the VMX file of a virtual machine to gather the information needed for the dump XML function. The VMX entry ethernet0.addressType maybe set to vpx if the generated MAC address was generated by a vCenter and not by the ESX host itself. No direct interaction between the ESX driver and a vCenter happens in this case.
But there is direct interaction between the ESX driver and a vCenter if you order the ESX driver to migrate a virtual machine from ESX host A to ESX host B.
An ESX host itself is not capable of initiating a migration to another ESX host. Both hosts must be attached to the same vCenter and the vCenter initiates and controls the migration. So the ESX driver needs to know the vCenter for a ESX host in order to do a migration. Therefore the ESX driver URI format contains an vcenter query parameter.
More detailed documentation in HTML form will be added soon.
Matthias
[IH] thanks for the elaboration. So the driver can talk to both an ESX server directly, or to vCenter. vCenter is used only for specific operations (like live migrations), and you opted to connect directly to ESX (rather than use vCenter API to start a VM as well) for the rest to allow using in a vCenter-free environment as well? Are there any other considerations to using ESX directly, or prefer to use vCenter (say, if you ask vCenter to start the VM, you could benefit from its load balancing capabilities, etc.). Btw, does asking ESX to start a VM from shared storage checks for locks, and prevents running same VM on two ESX in parallel, or must vCenter be used for "cluster-aware" use cases? Thanks, Itamar
2009/8/10 Itamar Heim <iheim@redhat.com>:
From: Matthias Bolte [mailto:matthias.bolte@googlemail.com] ...
The ESX driver parses the VMX file of a virtual machine to gather the information needed for the dump XML function. The VMX entry ethernet0.addressType maybe set to vpx if the generated MAC address was generated by a vCenter and not by the ESX host itself. No direct interaction between the ESX driver and a vCenter happens in this case.
But there is direct interaction between the ESX driver and a vCenter if you order the ESX driver to migrate a virtual machine from ESX host A to ESX host B.
An ESX host itself is not capable of initiating a migration to another ESX host. Both hosts must be attached to the same vCenter and the vCenter initiates and controls the migration. So the ESX driver needs to know the vCenter for a ESX host in order to do a migration. Therefore the ESX driver URI format contains an vcenter query parameter.
More detailed documentation in HTML form will be added soon.
Matthias
[IH] thanks for the elaboration. So the driver can talk to both an ESX server directly, or to vCenter. vCenter is used only for specific operations (like live migrations), and you opted to connect directly to ESX (rather than use vCenter API to start a VM as well) for the rest to allow using in a vCenter-free environment as well?
Yes, currently the driver prefers the ESX host and only uses the vCenter for task an ESX host cannot perform on its own. This way the vCenter can be optional and the driver also works with a vCenter-free setups.
Are there any other considerations to using ESX directly, or prefer to use vCenter (say, if you ask vCenter to start the VM, you could benefit from its load balancing capabilities, etc.).
Currently there are no such considerations. but I'll put this onto the todo list to think about it. The basic problem with the vCenter and libvirt is that the vCenter doesn't fit into libvirt's world model. libvirt only knows about hosts/nodes and virtual machines/domain running on them. Higher management instances like the vCenter are outside libvirt's world model.
Btw, does asking ESX to start a VM from shared storage checks for locks, and prevents running same VM on two ESX in parallel, or must vCenter be used for "cluster-aware" use cases?
To be honest I'm not sure and I haven't tested it yet, but I assume a vCenter I not necessary in this cases. Running the same VM on two ESX hosts in parallel should be prevented by lock files that are created by the ESX host itself. The cluster-awareness for basic file access should be in the file system itself. Matthias
On Sat, Aug 08, 2009 at 11:56:10PM +0200, Matthias Bolte wrote:
The VMX entry ethernet0.addressType may be set to 'vpx' beside 'static' and 'generated'. 'vpx' indicates that the MAC address was generated by a vCenter.
The attached patch adds 'vpx' to the valid values for ethernet0.addressType.
Matthias
diff --git a/src/esx/esx_vmx.c b/src/esx/esx_vmx.c index 54c2594..70e9305 100644 --- a/src/esx/esx_vmx.c +++ b/src/esx/esx_vmx.c @@ -276,6 +276,10 @@ def->nets[0]... ethernet0.addressType = "static" # default to "generated" ->mac = <value> <=> ethernet0.address = "<value>"
+ + ethernet0.addressType = "vpx" # default to "generated" +->mac = <value> <=> ethernet0.generatedAddress = "<value>" + # 00:0c:29 prefix for autogenerated mac's # 00:50:56 prefix for manual configured mac's # 00:05:69 old prefix from esx 1.5 @@ -1369,7 +1373,8 @@ esxVMX_ParseEthernet(virConnectPtr conn, virConfPtr conf, int controller, goto failure; }
- if (addressType == NULL || STRCASEEQ(addressType, "generated")) { + if (addressType == NULL || STRCASEEQ(addressType, "generated") || + STRCASEEQ(addressType, "vpx")) { if (generatedAddress != NULL) { if (virParseMacAddr(generatedAddress, (*def)->mac) < 0) { ESX_ERROR(conn, VIR_ERR_INTERNAL_ERROR, @@ -1390,8 +1395,8 @@ esxVMX_ParseEthernet(virConnectPtr conn, virConfPtr conf, int controller, } } else { ESX_ERROR(conn, VIR_ERR_INTERNAL_ERROR, - "Expecting VMX entry '%s' to be 'generated' or 'static' but " - "found '%s'", addressType_name, addressType); + "Expecting VMX entry '%s' to be 'generated' or 'static' or " + "'vpx' but found '%s'", addressType_name, addressType); goto failure; }
ACK Daniel -- |: Red Hat, Engineering, London -o- http://people.redhat.com/berrange/ :| |: http://libvirt.org -o- http://virt-manager.org -o- http://ovirt.org :| |: http://autobuild.org -o- http://search.cpan.org/~danberr/ :| |: GnuPG: 7D3B9505 -o- F3C9 553F A1DA 4AC2 5648 23C1 B3DF F742 7D3B 9505 :|
On Sat, Aug 08, 2009 at 11:56:10PM +0200, Matthias Bolte wrote:
The VMX entry ethernet0.addressType may be set to 'vpx' beside 'static' and 'generated'. 'vpx' indicates that the MAC address was generated by a vCenter.
The attached patch adds 'vpx' to the valid values for ethernet0.addressType.
Okay, I finally commited this patch :-) thanks ! Daniel -- Daniel Veillard | libxml Gnome XML XSLT toolkit http://xmlsoft.org/ daniel@veillard.com | Rpmfind RPM search engine http://rpmfind.net/ http://veillard.com/ | virtualization library http://libvirt.org/
participants (4)
-
Daniel P. Berrange -
Daniel Veillard -
Itamar Heim -
Matthias Bolte