[et-mgmt-tools] [PATCH 6/6] update virt-install options for specifying managed storage

[Cole Robinson]

Daniel P. Berrange wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 06, 2008 at 12:26:48PM -0400, Cole Robinson wrote:
>> The attached patch updates virt-install to allow specifying
>> libvirt managed storage.
>>
>> --file can specified managed storage using:
>>
>> - An absolute path to a managed volume
>> - A volume passed as --file volume:poolname:volname
>> - A pool to create storage on, using --file pool:poolname
>>
>> --cdrom can use the first of the above two options (doesn't
>> make sense to create install media).
>>
>> There is an obvious problem with this approach though:
>> Specifying pool:foo or volume:foo:bar could collide
>> with existing file names, and volume:foo:bar would
>> fail if the specified pool had a colon in it. This
>> was mostly my quick solution so I could test it all
>> out, i'm open to suggestions how to change it. Once an
>> interface is decided on I'll update the docs.
> 
> The other option would be to leave --file & --cdrom as they
> already are, and instead use a more sensibly named  option
> like --disk. People are often confused thinging that can't
> pass a block device to --file already.  
> 
> 
> The --cdrom arg also allows specifying a URI, in which case it
> downloads the ISO image from the install tree for booting. 
> 
> So  I'd suggest using URI syntax
> 
>    --disk  file:///some/file/path[:cdrom|floppy][:ro|sh]
>    --disk  vol:///poolname:volname[:cdrom|floppy][:ro|sh]
>    --disk  pool:///poolname[:cdrom|floppy][:ro|sh]

Hmm, I think this may be the way to go. Specifying all these options
doesn't fit into the current model. The one issue I see with this,
if we don't alter the --cdrom option, is how the user specifies
they want to install off cdrom media.

I guess if the user doesn't specify --pxe or --location we can
check to see if they passed a cdrom (or floppy!) and try to use
that.

> 
> So this defaults to creating a harddisk, writable, but lets you annotate
> the arg to specify that its a cdrom, or floppy, and optionally readonly
> or read-write shared.  In the future I expect we'll have more disk types
> like Flash, or USB massstorage, etc, so better to have a single --disk
> arg, than adding --floppy --usbmsd, --flash etc.
>

Agreed, I'll start working on this.
 
Thanks,
Cole