[et-mgmt-tools] RFC: virt-manager: Redesigned 'New VM' wizard

Cole Robinson crobinso at redhat.com
Tue Mar 3 17:45:12 UTC 2009


Subhendu Ghosh wrote:
> Bryan Kearney wrote:
>> Cole Robinson wrote:
>>> Bryan Kearney wrote:
>>>> Cole Robinson wrote:
>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Page 5: Summary and Advanced Options
>>>>>
>>>>> http://fedorapeople.org/~crobinso/virt-manager/newvm2/newvm-pg5-1.png
>>>>> http://fedorapeople.org/~crobinso/virt-manager/newvm2/newvm-pg5-2.png
>>>>> http://fedorapeople.org/~crobinso/virt-manager/newvm2/newvm-pg5-3.png
>>>>>
>>>>> The summary section is pretty straight forward, no surprises here.
>>>>> The 'Advanced Options' section encompasses networking, hypervisor, and
>>>>> architecture options. The hypervisor and arch defaults were explained
>>>>> above.
>>>>>
>>>>> For networking, the default is:
>>>>>
>>>>> - A bridge device if any exist, else
>>>>> - Virtual Network 'default' (comes out of the box with libvirt), else
>>>>> - First available virtual network, else
>>>>> - no networking!
>>>> Networking being "hidden" seems a bit odd here. In a decent number of
>>>> the cases I have used the tool in (not all) i wanted to select this. It
>>>> it possible to show this information on the summary, and then have them
>>>> click into advanced to set it?
>>>>
>>>
>>> In the times you were changing the default network selection, what was
>>> the reason? Choosing from more than one virtual net or bridge? Just
>>> curious.
>>
>> I had a specific bridge I wanted it to use. Normally.. I want it to
>> use default, but in 2 use cases I have specific bridges which I want
>> them to use.
>>
>>>
>>> The reasoning here is we want the UI to be as simple as possible for the
>>> out of the box user, which at most has 1 virtual network (and 1 bridge
>>> device if using xen networking). For these users, we don't want them to
>>> concern themselves with the default, we want it to 'just work'
>>
>> I agree. Which is why I wonder can you show that in the review step..
>> and then have them click to edit.
>>
>>>
>>> Anything beyond that case requires explicit user setup ahead of time,
>>> they should know full well when creating a new VM that they will have to
>>> select some non-default network setup. Forcing them to click the
>>> 'Advanced Options' expander doesn't seem like a loss, compared to the
>>> gain of allowing new users to not have to even think about networking
>>> (either by showing the network drop down, or having a summary field
>>> showing some choice they didn't explicitly make.)
>>>
> 
> How dynamic is the network list under advanced?
> 
> What happens if you don't find the network you are looking for and
> decide to go off an create it while leaving the wizard waiting on step
> 5? Do you have to restart the wizard?
> 

The current code won't pick up the changes, you would have to restart
the wizard. We have the mechanism in the backend to pick up the changes
though, so it would be a minor thing to add. I'll look into it for the
next patch spin.

> Also the wizard should support multiple NICs and disks - perhaps from
> step 5 -  be able to launch sub-wizards to add nic and add disk?
> 

I think such a process would add non-trivial complication to the UI for
a rather niche case. For a user wanting a multi nic or disk configured
VM, I would point them at virt-install which easily scales in this
respect. Extra NICs could also be added post install, since I would
think only one would be required for the install process.

Thanks,
Cole




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