[libvirt] [RFC PATCH 0/8] Make loading domains with invalid XML possible

[Martin Kletzander]

We always had to deal with new parsing errors in a weird way.  All of
them needed to go into functions starting the domains.  That messes up
the code, it's confusing to newcomers and so on.

I once had an idea that we can handle this stuff.  We know what
failed, we have the XML that failed parsing and if the problem is not
in the domain name nor UUID, we can create a domain object out of that
as well.  This way we are able to do something we weren't with this
series applied.  Example follows.

Assume "dummy" is a domain with invalid XML (I just modified the
file).  Now, just for the purpose of this silly example, let's say we
allowed domains with archtecture x86_*, but now we've realized that
x86_64 is the only one we want to allow, but there already is a domain
defined that has <type arch='x86_256' .../>.  With the current master,
the domain would be lost, so we would need to modify the funstion
starting the domain (e.g. qemuProcessStart for qemu domain).  However,
with this series, it behaves like this:

  # virsh list --all
   Id    Name                           State
  ----------------------------------------------------
   -     dummy                          shut off

  # virsh domstate --reason dummy
  shut off (invalid XML)

  # virsh start dummy
  error: Failed to start domain dummy
  error: XML error: domain 'dummy' was not loaded due to an XML error
  (unsupported configuration: Unknown architecture x86_256), please
  redefine it

  # VISUAL='sed -i s/x86_256/x86_64/' virsh edit dummy
  Domain dummy XML configuration edited.

  # virsh domstate --reason dummy
  shut off (unknown)

  # virsh start dummy
  Domain dummy started

This is a logical next step for us to clean and separate parsing and
starting, getting rid of some old code without sacrifying compatibility
and maybe generating parser code in the future.

Why is this an RFC?
 - I can certainly easily imagine some people who might not like this
 - It doesn't work for all drivers (yet)
 - It does handle status XMLs, but only slightly.  All the handling is
   done in a commit message that says something along the lines of
   "beware, we should still be careful, but not as much as before".
 - The error type used for the message is one that is already used for
   something else and we might want a new type of error for exactly
   this one error message, although it might be enough for some to
   have the possibility of checking this by querying the domain state
   and checking the reason.
 - Just so you know I came up with something new for which there's no
   BZ (or at least yet) =)


Martin Kletzander (8):
  conf, virsh: Add new domain shutoff reason
  qemu: Few whitespace cleanups
  conf: Extract name-parsing into its own function
  conf: Extract UUID parsing into its own function
  conf: Optionally keep domains with invalid XML
  qemu: Don't lookup invalid domains unless specified otherwise
  qemu: Prepare basic APIs to handle invalid defs
  qemu: Load domains with invalid XML on start

 include/libvirt/libvirt-domain.h |   2 +
 src/bhyve/bhyve_driver.c         |   2 +
 src/conf/domain_conf.c           | 180 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++------
 src/conf/domain_conf.h           |   5 ++
 src/libxl/libxl_driver.c         |   3 +
 src/lxc/lxc_driver.c             |   3 +
 src/qemu/qemu_driver.c           |  64 +++++++++++---
 src/uml/uml_driver.c             |   2 +
 tools/virsh-domain-monitor.c     |   3 +-
 9 files changed, 223 insertions(+), 41 deletions(-)

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2.5.3