[libvirt] Usability Enhancement: Import/Export VMs GUI
The single most important usability feature missed by our less technical users who migrate from VirtualBox is a one click import/export of VMs and their config settings. I was optimistic about the Gnome Boxes effort on Govf lib but unfortunately it was never realized and I would hesitate to recommend it because libvirt/virt-manager has the security advantages of sVirt. An ideal solution would work across all KVM frontends.
On Fri, Mar 04, 2016 at 04:23:18PM +0000, bancfc@openmailbox.org wrote:
The single most important usability feature missed by our less technical users who migrate from VirtualBox is a one click import/export of VMs and their config settings.
I was optimistic about the Gnome Boxes effort on Govf lib but unfortunately it was never realized and I would hesitate to recommend it because libvirt/virt-manager has the security advantages of sVirt.
An ideal solution would work across all KVM frontends.
This is a great idea, but I don't know about such one-click solution. This could be suitable for virt-manager and libguestfs projects (Cc'd both projects). If nobody grabs it right now, it could be at least suggested as GSoC and/or Outreachy project idea. Or were you looking forward to adding such solution? Have a nice day, Martin
On 03/10/2016 02:29 AM, Martin Kletzander wrote:
On Fri, Mar 04, 2016 at 04:23:18PM +0000, bancfc@openmailbox.org wrote:
The single most important usability feature missed by our less technical users who migrate from VirtualBox is a one click import/export of VMs and their config settings.
Who are you users? I gather you work on tails/tor, name dropping the project and explaining the use case a bit might actually help drum up interest :) - Cole
On 2016-03-10 15:43, Cole Robinson wrote:
On 03/10/2016 02:29 AM, Martin Kletzander wrote:
On Fri, Mar 04, 2016 at 04:23:18PM +0000, bancfc@openmailbox.org wrote:
The single most important usability feature missed by our less technical users who migrate from VirtualBox is a one click import/export of VMs and their config settings.
Who are you users? I gather you work on tails/tor, name dropping the project and explaining the use case a bit might actually help drum up interest :)
- Cole
Alright I'll introduce myself. I work on the Whonix Project [whonix.org] which is a Tor centric distro similar to TAILS but goes a step futher by leveraging the isolation properties of virtualizaiton for security. The setup is made up of two VMs a "Gateway" that runs Tor and which all traffic from an untrusted "Workstation" VM is forced thru it. The idea is that even if an attacker successfully roots the Workstation VM they still cannot deanonymize a user or infect the host. Its a fantastic project. You should try it and maybe even hack on it with us ;) Running on a secure and libre stack like KVM and Libvirt is awesome and wins half the battle. The rest of the way is about making the setup as easy as possible to expand the user base and to pull people away from proprietary hypervisors or fake opensource ones like VirtualBox. The initial import process with virsh commands puts off many newbies who lack the technical skills to get up and running. This is the single most coveted feature that comes up. It would be great if you guys can make it happen at GSoC :)
On Fri, Mar 11, 2016 at 10:32:15PM +0000, bancfc@openmailbox.org wrote:
On 2016-03-10 15:43, Cole Robinson wrote:
On 03/10/2016 02:29 AM, Martin Kletzander wrote:
On Fri, Mar 04, 2016 at 04:23:18PM +0000, bancfc@openmailbox.org wrote:
The single most important usability feature missed by our less technical users who migrate from VirtualBox is a one click import/export of VMs and their config settings.
Who are you users? I gather you work on tails/tor, name dropping the project and explaining the use case a bit might actually help drum up interest :)
- Cole
Alright I'll introduce myself.
I work on the Whonix Project [whonix.org] which is a Tor centric distro similar to TAILS but goes a step futher by leveraging the isolation properties of virtualizaiton for security.
The setup is made up of two VMs a "Gateway" that runs Tor and which all traffic from an untrusted "Workstation" VM is forced thru it. The idea is that even if an attacker successfully roots the Workstation VM they still cannot deanonymize a user or infect the host. Its a fantastic project. You should try it and maybe even hack on it with us ;)
Running on a secure and libre stack like KVM and Libvirt is awesome and wins half the battle. The rest of the way is about making the setup as easy as possible to expand the user base and to pull people away from proprietary hypervisors or fake opensource ones like VirtualBox.
Cool, now I'm wondering whether we also mention distros that are based on leveraging libvirt on our apps page [1]
The initial import process with virsh commands puts off many newbies who lack the technical skills to get up and running. This is the single most coveted feature that comes up. It would be great if you guys can make it happen at GSoC :)
Since virt-v2v can already quickly do that, I'm not sure the idea is big enough that it would be enough for such project. It would be basically a file chooser, button and running 'virt-v2v' with proper parameters if I'm not mistaken. Martin [1] https://libvirt.org/apps.html
On 2016-03-14 11:00, Martin Kletzander wrote:
On Fri, Mar 11, 2016 at 10:32:15PM +0000, bancfc@openmailbox.org wrote:
Cool, now I'm wondering whether we also mention distros that are based on leveraging libvirt on our apps page [1]
The initial import process with virsh commands puts off many newbies who lack the technical skills to get up and running. This is the single most coveted feature that comes up. It would be great if you guys can make it happen at GSoC :)
Since virt-v2v can already quickly do that, I'm not sure the idea is big enough that it would be enough for such project. It would be basically a file chooser, button and running 'virt-v2v' with proper parameters if I'm not mistaken.
Martin
I've been reading up on virt-v2v as a potential one line command solution for guest import but it seems this specific usecase is not what it was made for and this feature was ripped out: https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2015/09/18/importing-kvm-guests-to-ovirt-or-rhev/...
On Thu, Mar 24, 2016 at 02:37:56PM +0100, bancfc@openmailbox.org wrote:
On 2016-03-14 11:00, Martin Kletzander wrote:
On Fri, Mar 11, 2016 at 10:32:15PM +0000, bancfc@openmailbox.org wrote:
Cool, now I'm wondering whether we also mention distros that are based on leveraging libvirt on our apps page [1]
The initial import process with virsh commands puts off many newbies who lack the technical skills to get up and running. This is the single most coveted feature that comes up. It would be great if you guys can make it happen at GSoC :)
Since virt-v2v can already quickly do that, I'm not sure the idea is big enough that it would be enough for such project. It would be basically a file chooser, button and running 'virt-v2v' with proper parameters if I'm not mistaken.
Martin
I've been reading up on virt-v2v as a potential one line command solution for guest import but it seems this specific usecase is not what it was made for and this feature was ripped out:
https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2015/09/18/importing-kvm-guests-to-ovirt-or-rhev/...
We're both talking about different things then. virt-v2v is supposed to be able to import OVA image, that is extract all the stuff from it and feed it to libvirt. Although I was only told that, I have no hands on experience with that. Totally different thing is importing only disk images. virt-install and virt-manager can already do that and that's not the case for virt-v2v.
On Thu, Mar 24, 2016 at 03:23:07PM +0100, Martin Kletzander wrote:
We're both talking about different things then. virt-v2v is supposed to be able to import OVA image, that is extract all the stuff from it and feed it to libvirt. Although I was only told that, I have no hands on experience with that.
The command: $ virt-v2v -i ova some.ova will import `some.ova' into your current libvirt instance. However, virt-v2v is really limited to a subset of source hypervisors and guests. If you're not on this list: http://libguestfs.org/virt-v2v.1.html#support-matrix you're not getting in! If your guest already runs on KVM (for example, it came from KVM originally, and was just packaged up as an OVA by some deluded person who thinks that OVA is a standard), you shouldn't be using virt-v2v at all.
Totally different thing is importing only disk images. virt-install and virt-manager can already do that and that's not the case for virt-v2v.
Right, virt-install --import is the way to go (or the equivalent graphical commands in virt-manager). Note that an OVA file is just a uncompressed tarball. You can extract the disk images from it by doing: $ tar xvvf some.ova (That is, except for those OVAs which are not tarballs. Some of them are ZIP files. Some of them are directories. It's such a wonderful standard!) Rich. -- Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones Read my programming and virtualization blog: http://rwmj.wordpress.com virt-p2v converts physical machines to virtual machines. Boot with a live CD or over the network (PXE) and turn machines into KVM guests. http://libguestfs.org/virt-v2v
On 2016-03-10 07:29, Martin Kletzander wrote:
On Fri, Mar 04, 2016 at 04:23:18PM +0000, bancfc@openmailbox.org wrote:
The single most important usability feature missed by our less technical users who migrate from VirtualBox is a one click import/export of VMs and their config settings.
I was optimistic about the Gnome Boxes effort on Govf lib but unfortunately it was never realized and I would hesitate to recommend it because libvirt/virt-manager has the security advantages of sVirt.
An ideal solution would work across all KVM frontends.
This is a great idea, but I don't know about such one-click solution. This could be suitable for virt-manager and libguestfs projects (Cc'd both projects). If nobody grabs it right now, it could be at least suggested as GSoC and/or Outreachy project idea. Or were you looking forward to adding such solution?
Thanks for your interest. I agree, Outreachy and especially GSoC is a good place to announce this.
Have a nice day, Martin
participants (4)
-
bancfc＠openmailbox.org -
Cole Robinson -
Martin Kletzander -
Richard W.M. Jones