Thanks Justin,
Thanks for a fantastic explaination!!
This clears up so many of my doubts. I will try out all this and other ways
I have in mind while referring to the libvirt docs.
Thanks a ton.
Thanks and Regards
Sagar Barve
----- Original Message -----
From: "Justin Clift" <justin@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "IKI-サガル バルウェ" <sagar.barve@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: <libvir-list@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, June 17, 2010 8:39 PM
Subject: Re: 1. Domain Destroy , 2. Domain boot on a different
host and 3. Domain start time
On 06/17/2010 07:04 PM, IKI-サガル バルウェ wrote:
<snip>
I understood now what the destroy function does. As for "domainUndefine":
To quote from the "undefine" method's documentation:
Undefine a domain but does not stop it if it is running
So, If the Domain remains as it is, what is the significance of removing
the
XML Description/Definition?
What I want to do, is to remove the Domain completely from the system,
including its associated virtual disks. Is there any way to do this using
the API?
No worries. There's a main concept you need to get, but it's easy so
keep on reading. :)
With libvirt, there are two related parts:
a) Domain "definition" storage (an XML file)
b) Running of a definition (KVM/Xen/etc)
Keeping the concept simple, the key idea is you have 2 ways of starting
a brand new domain:
a) starting a domain in a "transient" fashion, where the XML that
describes the domain's attributes and features isn't kept around.
Using this method, KVM/Xen/etc is launched with the appropriate
resources, but the config for it isn't saved to disk. If you
restart libvirt or the host server, then libvirtd will completely
forget this domain exists. It will be gone, and you won't be able
to manage it.
================================================
| Runs in memory? | Config saved to disk? |
================================================
= Yes = No =
================================================
b) starting a domain in a "persistent" fashion, where the XML that
describes the domain's attributes and features IS kept around,
saved to disk.
Using this method, KVM/Xen/etc is launched with the appropriate
resources too, plus the config for it (an XML file) is saved to
disk. If you restart libvirt, then libvirt knows about this
domain and you can still manage it.
================================================
| Runs in memory? | Config saved to disk? |
================================================
= Yes = Yes =
================================================
The act of saving the config file to disk, so the domain is persistent,
is called "Defining" it. You can get a type a) domain above that
wouldn't persist across host reboots, run a "Define" on it, then you
have a type b) that will persist across reboots.
Going the other way works too. If you "Undefine" a domain, that doesn't
affect the running instance, but takes away the config file. The next
time libvirt is restarted, the domain is unknown.
http://libvirt.org/html/libvirt-libvirt.html#virDomainDefineXML
http://libvirt.org/html/libvirt-libvirt.html#virDomainUndefine
****************
Separate to that are the "Create" and "Destroy" functions, which control
a (possibly running) instance:
http://libvirt.org/html/libvirt-libvirt.html#virDomainCreate
http://libvirt.org/html/libvirt-libvirt.html#virDomainDestroy
These don't affect the config file saved state, they just start up or
shut down KVM/Xen/etc.
****************
So, with the above in mind, to completely kill off a domain you need to
both:
+ Destroy it's instance if it's running
+ Undefine it's config file if it's defined
Check with:
http://libvirt.org/html/libvirt-libvirt.html#virDomainIsPersistent
(btw - this is all a concept explanation. It's good enough to get you
started. As you explore functions in the libvirt docs you will find and
learn to use bits that can short cut or change this. :> )
Secondly, Is it possible to boot a domain on a completely different
physical
host with the same Hypervisor configuration?
You can use libvirt for this, but it's not automatic. As far as I know,
you'll need to have your software connect to each of the servers and
launch the appropriate virDomainCreate() (and probably other) commands.
So, it would be up to your application to make sure that the domain is
not running on server A, before you launch it on server B.
I am sorry, but I did not get this quite completely. Could you please
explain this a bit more? Especially the "it would be up to your
application
to make sure that the domain is
not running on server A, before you launch it on server B" part. Firstly,
how will I get the domain from server A to server B to launch it there?
By
migrating it to server B?
Yeah, that's a more in depth explanation. I don't personally have the
time at the moment to write that up. :(
The short answer is that you need to make sure the storage
(disk/SAN/NAS/etc) can be seen from both hosts, and that you can use
your above knowledge to transfer the XML config around (if you want) and
Create or Destroy or Migrate domains appropriately.
Hope that helps. :)
Regards and best wishes,
Justin Clift
Please help.
Thanks and Regards
Sagar Barve
--
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