On 10/11/2011 02:04 AM, Nicolas Sebrecht wrote:
Yes, you goofed by directly editing /etc/libvirt. By doing that,
you are going behind libvirt's back - if your edits happen to work,
then a libvirtd restart will use them, but if you introduce a typo
or other problem, then it is your fault that libvirt can't get
things to work. If you had instead gone through the libvirt API
(such as by using 'virsh edit bwimail02'), then libvirt would do
some sanity checking up front and refuse to install your changes
unless they were safe.
Which is comunterintuitive, IMHO. Admins are used to edit configuration
files in /etc because most software are designed this way.
Files not designed to be edited may stand in /var. At least, current
files in /etc could have a header with comments from preventing manual
edition and tips on how to deal to change configuration. ,-p
Which is exactly why newer libvirt sticks this header on such files
(here, from /etc/libvirt/qemu/domainname.xml):
<!--
WARNING: THIS IS AN AUTO-GENERATED FILE. CHANGES TO IT ARE LIKELY TO BE
OVERWRITTEN AND LOST. Changes to this xml configuration should be made
using:
virsh edit domainname
or other application using the libvirt API.
-->
--
Eric Blake eblake@xxxxxxxxxx +1-801-349-2682
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org
