[fedora-virt] customizing VMM on a per-user basis to use libguestfs?

[Cole Robinson]

On 04/21/2009 03:45 PM, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> On Tue, 21 Apr 2009, Cole Robinson wrote:
> 
>> On 04/21/2009 02:07 PM, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
>>> On Tue, 21 Apr 2009, Cole Robinson wrote:
>>>
>>>> Per user configuration is handled by gconf, so if user1 changed a
>>>> setting in Preferences, user2 would still have the default.
>>>>
>>>> However, there is no global way yet to change what the 'default'
>>>> storage location is. There is a place in the new VM wizard to
>>>> type in a manual path to provision (such as your home directory),
>>>> which would then allow you to use libguestfs on it.
>>>   so is there a simple way to move an existing VM disk image from
>>> one location to another that doesn't confuse the VMM?
>> Not sure what you mean by confuse VMM, but there isn't any way to move
>> around disk images in virt-manager.
> 
>   right, i noticed that.  however, ...
> 
>> If you create a guest with disk at /foo/disk.img, then move the
>> image to /bar/disk.img, the old libvirt guest configuration won't
>> know where the disk is anymore.
> 
>   so where does virt-manager keep track of where the various images
> are?  obviously, if that was easily editable, that would be a
> solution.  but, as you say, the current incarnation of virt-manager
> doesn't support that.
> 

For starters, virt-manager keeps track of barely anything itself. Most
info about storage or VMs is received from libvirt.

That said, I'm not sure I understand exactly what you want. Could you
lay out:

- The exact steps you are taking
- What you would like/expect to see from vmm/libvirt
- What you are actually seeing from vmm/libvirt

>> You can remove the virtual disk from the VM in virt-manager, then
>> add a new virtual disk pointing to the new path.
> 
>   um ... you can?  how?  as in, how through the graphical
> virt-manager?  i'm assuming what you mean is that you can take an
> *existing* VM image file and somehow register it with the current VMM.
> or are you talking about something else?
> 

On F11:

- Select a shutoff VM in the manager window, hit the 'Open' button on
the bottom row.
- Select the details tab.
- Select the disk device (probably 'hda' or 'vda') whose path you changed
- Click the 'Remove' button on the bottom
- Click the 'Add Hardware' button on the bottom left
- Select 'Storage', click 'Next'
- Browse->Browse Local->Select the new disk location
- Make sure 'Device Type' is the same as the original disk
- Next->Finish

Hope that helps,
Cole

>> Or you can use 'virsh edit vmname' from the command line and change
>> the path.
> 
>   i'm not sure how that solves the problem once you move that image
> elsewhere and virt-manager can't find it.  or am i just being confused
> again?
> 
> rday
> --
> ========================================================================
> Robert P. J. Day                               Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
> 
>         Linux Consulting, Training and Annoying Kernel Pedantry.
> 
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