Upgrading the host

Michal Privoznik mprivozn at redhat.com
Tue Feb 16 08:51:52 UTC 2021


On 2/12/21 2:10 AM, Marcin Struzak wrote:
> Hello--
> 
> I'm planning on upgrading the OS on my host machine by doing manual 
> re-installation, which will trigger an upgrade of libvirt from 1.1.3 to 
> 6.1.0.  Hardware, storage volumes & paths, etc., will be the same after 
> upgrade.
> 
> I was going to redefine & start everything from .xml files, starting 
> with the network
> 
>      virsh net-define <network XML>
>      virsh net-autostart <network>
>      virsh net-start <network>
> 
> and following with all the guests
> 
>      virsh define <domain XML>
>      virsh autostart <domain>
>      virsh start <domain>

If you are just upgrading the libvirt package then you do not need to do 
any of this. Libvirt picks everything up after it's restarted. But if 
you are installing host from scratch then ..

> 
> I have the following questions:
> 
>  1. Do I need to generate XML dumps manually, or is it ok to use the
>     ones from host's /etc/libvirt?

.. yes, back up XMls here and use define & start as you suggested.

>  2. Do I need to define & start storage pools & volumes explicitly, or
>     will they be picked up from domain definitions?

Storage pools won't be defined automatically. You need to save their 
XMLs too. You can find them under /etc/libvirt/storage/. Don't forget on 
secrets if you use them too.

>  3. Anything else I should worry about or prepare ahead?

Not strictly related to libvirt, but machine types might be problem. I 
guess qemu will be upgraded too and in general the machine type you're 
using for a domain might not be available in upgraded qemu.

You can view supported machine types by running 'virsh capabilities' 
with upgraded qemu.

Good luck!

Michal




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