[Fedora-xen] virt-manager and CD drive?

[Daniel P. Berrange]

On Wed, Dec 13, 2006 at 01:37:08PM -0500, Tom Horsley wrote:
> I was impressed that I could install a fully virtual fedora guest directly from the DVD
> by pointing the virt-manager wizard at the dvd drive.
> 
> I wonder though, if I have a guest OS with multiple CDs needed to install,
> will it let me swap CDs during the installation? Or do I need to arrange
> for some different source to install from?

It is possible, but not at all nice / pretty.  Basically fully virt guests
use QEMU to provide their device model. QEMU has an 'admin' or 'monitor'
console to let you poke / change the virtual devices - in particular it
lets you change the CDROM device backing file which is nice :-)

Unfortunately there are various bugs in Xen relating to the QEMU monitor,
eg you can't type in UPPERCASE letters due to an obscure bug (we've got a
fix waiting to push out to Xen in FC6 for this). Its also complicated 
because your local window manager may already have some action bound to
the keystroke used to switch into the monitor!

That aside, the proess for changing CDROM devices goes something like this:

  1. Open graphical console to guest OS in virt-manager

  2. Unmount the CDROM device in the guest OS

  3. Switch to QEMU monitor console by typing 'Ctrl+Alt+2'.

     NB, if the window manager intercepts this, use the virt-manager 
     'sticky keys' capability    "Ctrl   Ctrl   Ctrl   Alt+2"

  4. Type 'eject hdc' into the QEMU monitor console

  5. Type 'change hdc /path/to/some/image.iso' into QEMU monitor console

     NB. The path is either a ISO file or the device in host system

  6. Switch back to guest OS console by typing  'Ctrl+Alt+1' 

     NB, if the window manager intercepts this, use the virt-manager 
     'sticky keys' capability    "Ctrl   Ctrl   Ctrl   Alt+1"

  7. Mount CDROM device in guest OS

Regards,
Dan.
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