On Wed, Aug 09, 2006 at 11:54:26PM +0100, Daniel P. Berrange wrote:
> Jeremy mentioned that it looked like libvirt wasn't able to create an
> HVM domain configured to boot off cdrom, so I took a closer look at the
> code and indeed the code dealing with <boot> section was both incomplete,
> and just plain broken. Incomplete in so much as it never included details
> of the ISO file backing the CDROM, and broken in so much as it was doing
> string comparisons against the wrong variables. Digging further found
> lots more work relating to creation of HVM domains so I've had a go at
> writing a patch to resolve matters.
[snip]
> I have tested that with this patch I can successfully create a HVM domain
> which boots off a floppy, harddrive or cdrom. Furthermore if you then dump
> the XML of this domain,the XML you get back will match the XML you fed in
> (with the obvious exception of domain ID, and the Pseudo TTY path).
I meant to include a complete example XML doc showing the changes in
place, so here is a XML dump from a HVM domain which has been booted
off a CDROM:
<domain type='xen' id='9'>
<name>too</name>
<uuid>b5d70dd275cdaca517769660b059d8bc</uuid>
<os>
<type>hvm</type>
<loader>/usr/lib/xen/boot/hvmloader</loader>
<boot dev='cdrom'/>
</os>
<memory>409600</memory>
<vcpu>1</vcpu>
<on_poweroff>destroy</on_poweroff>
<on_reboot>restart</on_reboot>
<on_crash>restart</on_crash>
<devices>
<emulator>/usr/lib64/xen/bin/qemu-dm</emulator>
<interface type='bridge'>
<source bridge='xenbr0'/>
<mac address='00:16:3e:1b:b1:47'/>
<script path='vif-bridge'/>
</interface>
<disk type='file'>
<source file='/root/foo.img'/>
<target dev='ioemu:hda'/>
</disk>
<disk type='file'>
<source file='/root/boot.iso'/>
<target dev='cdrom'/>
</disk>
<graphics type='vnc' port='5909'/>
<console tty='/dev/pts/3'/>
</devices>
</domain>
> If you have been monitoring xen-devel mailing lists you'll be aware that
> in 3.0.3 the way CDROM devices are configured is changing:
>
> http://lists.xensource.com/archives/html/xen-devel/2006-08/msg00369.html
>
> Although the patch attached does not support the config outlined in that
> mail, I'm pretty confident that a small incremental patch will be able to
> support it without breaking compatability with the changes I've outlined
> in this mail. The only tricky bit will be that we need to detect whether
> libvirt is running against a 3.0.2 or 3.0.3 version of XenD to decide how
> to convert XML -> SEXPR & vica verca.
Jeremy also just posted a patch to xen-devel allowing multiple boot devices
to be specified:
http://lists.xensource.com/archives/html/xen-devel/2006-08/msg00576.html
So you can do the classic installer use case of "Try harddisk, if no
boot sector, then fallback to [installation] cdrom"
It would seem the obvious way to express this in libvirt XML would be to
allow multiple <boot> elements with their ordering translating to the
boot orrdering. So for example that use case would be expressed as:
<domain type='xen' id='9'>
<name>too</name>
<uuid>b5d70dd275cdaca517769660b059d8bc</uuid>
<os>
<type>hvm</type>
<loader>/usr/lib/xen/boot/hvmloader</loader>
<boot dev='hd'/>
<boot dev='cdrom'/>
</os>
The other (non-compatible) change would be to allow nested device entries
<domain type='xen' id='9'>
<name>too</name>
<uuid>b5d70dd275cdaca517769660b059d8bc</uuid>
<os>
<type>hvm</type>
<loader>/usr/lib/xen/boot/hvmloader</loader>
<boot>
<dev type='hd'/>
<dev type='cdrom'/>
</boot>
</os>
I'm inclined to just go for the former.
Regards,
Dan.
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