[libvirt] XenAPI remote storage - target path

[Sharadha Prabhakar (3P)]

> Hi,
> I'm trying to write a Remote Storage driver for XenAPI.
> I see that target-path is used for both storage pools and volumes.
> In the case of XenAPI remote storage, the storage is not mounted on the
> local host where libvirt is running. Storage is maintained in a remote location only.
> In this case how do I specify target-path and how do I go about creating
> a VM with storage using libvirt APIs with virsh and virt-manager. 
> Virt-manager expects me to give an absolute path for target-path. But In my case
> I don't have an absolute path. 
> Can I have a target path like this for a particular storage volume
> "/storage pool uuid/storage-vol uuid"? This will help me identify which storage pool is
> Libvirt talking about and which volume in it. Using this information I can fetch data from
> The remote location and give it back to libvirt. Is this approach
> ok or does libvirt support my specific remote storage case in some way. Could someone
> clarify please?

>It may help to understand the usage scenario.

> - App creates a storage pool with a target '/foo'
In the case of XenAPI there will be no target, it can be '/' for now as you said.
The <source> tag will have the host name and path.
> - App creates a storage volume called 'bar'
The volume target path will be /sr-uuid/vol-uuid
> - Storage pool driver creates a path for volume based on pool target and
>   volume name. eg it might decide /foo/bar
driver creates the path /sr-uuid/vol-uuid 
> - App queries path of new volume and gets '/foo/bar'
virStorageVolGetPath() will return same as above for any volume
> - App creates a new disk, passing '/foo/bar' in the <disk> element in
>   the guest XML
source in the disk element will have the same path. Here using sr-uuid
the driver would locate the actual location of the SR and the specified 
volume in it using vol-uuid and attach it to the new VM being created.

>The real key thing here is that 'virStorageVolGetPath' *must* return a path
>suitable for use in the guest XML <disk> element <source file=/foo/bar>

>To answer your question then, we ned to know what the path looks like that
>you use to configure the guest disk when starting the guest ?  Once you
>know that, then the storage driver must be implemented such that 
>virStorageVolGetPath() returns a path that matches what XenAPI wants for
>the guest config.   

This will be the UUID path as usual. As I said earlier XenAPI will get the 
Actual location from the UUIDs and attach with the new guest VM.

>As for pool target, if nothing else you can simply require that the pool
>is configured with a target path of '/'  at which point it is essentially
>ignorable, since all paths start with a '/' anyway.

There is no pool target so I'll just leave it with '/' for now.

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