[libvirt] [PATCH] qemu: ensure "pc" machine is always used as default if available

[Daniel P. Berrangé]

It is increasingly likely that some distro is going to change the
default "x86" machine type in QEMU from "pc" to "q35". This will
certainly break existing applications which write their XML on the
assumption that its using a "pc" machine by default. For example they'll
lack a IDE CDROM and get PCI-X instad of PCI which changes the topology
radically.

Libvirt promises to isolate applications from hypervisor changes that
may cause incompatibilities, so we must ensure that we always use the
"pc" machine type if it is available. Only use QEMU's own reported
default machine type if "pc" does not exist.

Note this change assumes there will always be a "pc" alias as long as a
versioned "pc-XXX" machine type exists. If QEMU were to ship a "pc-XXX"
machine type but not provide the "pc" alias, it is too hard to decide
which to default so. Versioned machine types are supposed to be
considered opaque strings, so we can't apply any sensible ordering
ourselves and QEMU isn't reporting the list of machines in any sensible
ordering itself.

Signed-off-by: Daniel P. Berrangé <berrange at redhat.com>
---
 src/qemu/qemu_capabilities.c | 19 +++++++++++++++++--
 1 file changed, 17 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/src/qemu/qemu_capabilities.c b/src/qemu/qemu_capabilities.c
index 0fb800589a..9eb58afef3 100644
--- a/src/qemu/qemu_capabilities.c
+++ b/src/qemu/qemu_capabilities.c
@@ -2242,6 +2242,17 @@ virQEMUCapsProbeQMPMachineTypes(virQEMUCapsPtr qemuCaps,
     int ret = -1;
     size_t i;
     size_t defIdx = 0;
+    ssize_t preferredIdx = -1;
+    const char *preferredAlias = NULL;
+
+    /* Historically QEMU defaulted to 'pc' machine type but in
+     * future might switch 'q35'. Such a change is considered
+     * an ABI break from lbivirt's POV, so we must be sure to
+     * keep 'pc' as default machine no matter what QEMU says.
+     */
+    if (qemuCaps->arch == VIR_ARCH_X86_64 ||
+        qemuCaps->arch == VIR_ARCH_I686)
+        preferredAlias = "pc";
 
     if ((nmachines = qemuMonitorGetMachines(mon, &machines)) < 0)
         return -1;
@@ -2263,12 +2274,16 @@ virQEMUCapsProbeQMPMachineTypes(virQEMUCapsPtr qemuCaps,
         mach->maxCpus = machines[i]->maxCpus;
         mach->hotplugCpus = machines[i]->hotplugCpus;
 
+        if (STREQ_NULLABLE(mach->alias, preferredAlias))
+            preferredIdx = qemuCaps->nmachineTypes - 1;
+
         if (machines[i]->isDefault)
             defIdx = qemuCaps->nmachineTypes - 1;
     }
 
-    if (defIdx)
-        virQEMUCapsSetDefaultMachine(qemuCaps, defIdx);
+    if (preferredIdx == -1)
+        preferredIdx = defIdx;
+    virQEMUCapsSetDefaultMachine(qemuCaps, preferredIdx);
 
     ret = 0;
 
-- 
2.17.1