FYI, virt-install/virt-manager are discussed primarily on virt-tools-list@xxxxxxxxxx On 10/01/2010 04:19 PM, Stanley, Jon [Tech] wrote: > So virt-install is a really nice piece of software, but it's a bit too complicated for our use case :). > > We would want some mode of it to simply generate XML and go home :). The use case is that we have a script which carries out a number of other actions in addition to creating a guest, and creating a guest and putting an OS on it are two separate steps. > Historically we've resisted adding such an option because most install scenarios generate more than 1 XML configuration. For example, non-windows CDROM installs generate 1 configuration for booting from CDROM media, and a final configuration set to boot from disk. There is also the problem of URL installs downloading temporary media like kernel/initrd. Basically anything that has an actual install phase. Nowadays though we have options like --import and --boot that don't really install anything, so --xml-only would be more useful. We could also print a descriptive error if the user tries to use the option with a URL or CDROM install. Additionally we could add an option for virt-install to install an OS into an existing VM. So your sequence of events could be virt-install <typical options> --boot hd --xml-only > foo.xml <extra pre-install config> virt-install --reinstall-xml foo.xml --location http://example.com/distro > It would also be nice to have some command line interface to modify a guest's boot selection, for example, changing from PXE to local disk. Even nicer would be a concept of boot order - we have a setup where the first normal boot order is PXE, and if that fails (which it should a majority of the time) then go to local disk. > Libvirt supports setting a boot order, just specify multiple <boot dev=/> elements in the desired order. Latest virt-install allows setting this with the --boot option. Also, a new tool is forthcoming that will provide the existing virt-install options (where applicable) for use against an existing domain or XML input. So to change the boot device of an existing domain to local disk, a possible invocation might look like virt-xml --domain $vmname --boot hd The tool doesn't exist yet, but all the plumbing is their in virtinst for it to be a pretty straightforward job. Of course, any assistance would be appreciated :) - Cole -- libvir-list mailing list libvir-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/libvir-list