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Virtualization

In this section, we cover discussion of Fedora virtualization technologies on the @et-mgmnt-tools-list, @fedora-xen-list, and @libvirt-list and lists.

Contributing Writer: Dale Bewley

Enterprise Management Tools List

This section contains the discussion happening on the et-mgmt-tools list


Fedora Virtualization List

This section contains the discussion happening on the fedora-virt list.

Rawhide Virtualization Repository

Mark McLoughlin announced[1] the launce of the virt preview repo(FWN#171[2]). "We've set up a repository for people running Fedora 11 who would like to test the rawhide/F12 virt packages. To use it, do e.g."

  $> cat > /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-virt-preview.repo << EOF
  [rawvirt]
  name=Virtualization Rawhide for Fedora 11
  baseurl=http://markmc.fedorapeople.org/virt-preview/f11/$basearch/
  enabled=1
  gpgcheck=0
  EOF
  $> yum update

Adding "this is very much a work-in-progress."

Mark McLoughlin decribed[3] the different types of users consuming these packages:

  • 1) Users who want things to stay stable and who aren't necessarily expecting new features until they update to F-12 - these are people with just the updates repo enabled
  • 2) Same as (1) but who are willing to help out testing updates for the whole distro in order to catch things before they hit the people in category (1) - these people have the updates and updates-testing repos enabled
  • 3) Mostly the same as (1) or (2), but have a specific interest in testing new virt features and are willing to deal with virt regressions - these people enable the updates, updates-testing and preview repos
  • 4) People who are interested in helping with helping with F-12 development in general, not just virt - these people run rawhide

Daniel Berrange added[4] "The virt-preview repo is intended primarily as an aid to testing / early experimentation. It is not intended for 'production' deployment."

No libguestfs on Fedora 10

Ján ONDREJ referenced[1] FWN[2] when asking if Richard Jones would consider including Package-x-generic-16.pngqemu-0.10 into Package-x-generic-16.pnglibguestfs package to satisfy dependencies for Fedora 10.

Richard "had a go at backporting the changes to qemu that we ship in F-10. qemu in F-10 is based on qemu 0.9, and doesn't include the vmchannel patch." But "ended up with a qemu which compiled, but kept segfaulting, and it was tricky to diagnose exactly why."

"Is it really a problem to use the libguestfs[3] and/or qemu[4] packages from Fedora 11 builds? You can grab the latest builds out of Koji." "This worked OK for me, although I have now moved to using Fedora 11-Preview, and have mostly abandoned Fedora 10."

Daniel B and Mark Mc concurred, Fedora 11 is the place to get libguestfs .

New Release virt-inspector

Richard Jones announced[1] "the first 'really working' version of virt-inspector[2]."

"This is a tool based around libguestfs which can inspect a virtual machine disk image and tell you some interesting things about what's inside it."

Some of the things virt-inspector can tell you:

  • What operating system(s) are installed, and what distros and versions. It currently covers RHEL releases, Fedora releases, Debian releases, and has limited support for Windows.
  • How disk partitions are expected to be mounted (eg. /dev/sda1 -> /boot)
  • What applications are installed.
  • What kernel(s) are installed.
  • What kernel modules are installed.

Fedora Xen List

This section contains the discussion happening on the fedora-xen list.

Xen 3.4.0 Released

Pasi Kärkkäinen forwarded[1] an announcement from the Xen list.

"This release contains a number of important new features and updates including:

  • Device passthrough improvements, with particular emphasis on support for client devices (further support is available as part of the XCI project[2])
  • RAS[3] features: cpu and memory offlining
  • Power management - improved frequency/voltage controls and deep-sleep support. Scheduler and timers optimised for peak power savings.
  • Support for the Viridian (Hyper-V) enlightenment interface
  • Many other x86 and ia64 enhancements and fixes

Fedora 11 includes Package-x-generic-16.pngXen version 3.3.1.

Libvirt List

This section contains the discussion happening on the libvir-list.

Libvirt VMWare ESX Driver In Development

Matthias Bolte announced[1] "a project of the Paderborn Center for Parallel Computing"[2] having "a subgoal is to extend the driver base of Package-x-generic-16.pnglibvirt. We've started an VMware ESX driver and are investigating Hyper-V support."

"The ESX driver isn't complete yet, currently it supports:"

  • domain lookup by ID, UUID and name
  • domain listing
  • domain suspend and resume
  • domain reboot, if the VMware tools are installed inside the domain
  • domain start and shutdown
  • domain migration

"We think this code might be useful for others and would be glad if the driver could be merged into libvirt in medium term." Matthias was met with enthusiasm from the core libvirt developers.