[libvirt] virt-install and custom distros

[Cole Robinson]

Kay Williams wrote:
> We have an application that builds custom distributions based on RHEL, CentOS or 
> Fedora.  We would like to install these over the network using virt-install, but 
> we've run into an issue with the distro check logic. Specifically, virt-install 
> fails unless it finds a string "Red Hat Enterprise Linux", "Fedora"  or "CentOS" 
> within the family field of the .treeinfo file.
> 
> Our application currently sets the family field to the user-provided distro name 
> (see below).  We have avoided using the base distro name given trademark concerns.
> 
>      [general]
>      family = <user provided value>
>      variant = <user provided value>
> 
> We can get virt-install to pass the distro check by setting the family name to 
> one of the accepted values, e.g.
> 
>      [general]
>      family = Fedora
>      variant = [user provided distro name]
> 
> Is this the expected/desired use for the family and variant fields?  Or is there 
> another approach we should consider?
> 
> Thanks,
> Kay

(cc-ing et-mgmt-tools, since that is the list for virt-install/
 virt-manager)

We shouldn't be failing if the family/variant is unknown: it's really
just a convenience check. We can just assume it's an unknown distro
and continue on, checking for [images-xen] and so on.. The code may
need to be reworked a bit to accomodate this.

Although we don't do it at the moment, I could see us in the future
using this family/variant value to check our internal db on whether
to set up virtio and other specific settings. So using custom values
here may not allow virt-install to choose an optimal config, but we
should still try and let the install proceed.

- Cole