[libvirt] [RFC] new preferences requirement

[Daniel P. Berrange]

On Wed, Dec 01, 2010 at 09:19:30PM +1100, Justin Clift wrote:
> On 01/12/2010, at 8:35 PM, Osier Yang wrote:
> >   Should we add these new preferences(if they are really neccessary)
> > in qemu.conf? or create new config file, e.g. The approch Justin
> > raised up an approch before:
> > http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2010-November/msg00651.html
> > 
> >   Though for Justin's approch, IMHO we'd better also to provide a
> > default config file, e.g. "/etc/libvirt/client.conf".
> > 
> >   Any feedback is welcomed, thanks
> 
> When thinking about this more, three levels of preference can be found in
> other applications, and _might_ be the right approach for us to take as well.

Management of preferences belongs in application code, rather than
libvirt. Library APIs need to have standard, predictable behaviour
that apps can rely on in any deployment. We don't want that being
changed globally for all applications by config files.

Even if apps do want configuration data, we can't assume they want the
data stored in configuration files. Any current GTK application will
use GConf for any configuration, or in the future GSettings which
has pluggable backends per OS platform.


>   1) System wide
> 
>     Client preferences stored in a location that's applicable to all users.
> 
>       ie:  /etc/libvirt.conf or similar
> 
>     We can't put it in the /etc/libvirt/ directory with the present permission
>     structure, because /etc/libvirt/ is not world readable.  Would need to be
>     in a world readable location (/etc/ ?) or we could relax the perms of
>     /etc/libvirt/ (prob not likely).

It is restricted because many of the files below /etc/libvirt contain
passwords and/or other sensitive data, so it can't be opened.

Regards,
Daniel