Re: EL6 initscript feedback.

[Stefano Stabellini <stefano.stabellini@eu.citrix.com>]

On Tue, 21 May 2013, Gordan Bobic wrote:
> On Tue, 21 May 2013 21:30:27 +1000, Steven Haigh <netwiz@crc.id.au> wrote:
> > On 05/21/2013 09:20 PM, Stefano Stabellini wrote:
> > > On Tue, 21 May 2013, Steven Haigh wrote:
> > > > Hi all,
> > > > 
> > > > I'm throwing in my initscript here that I've been pushing to autostart
> > > > xen
> > > > domains on system boot.
> > > > 
> > > > There are at least one issue right now that I'm not 100% sure how to
> > > > handle -
> > > > and that is domains created by libvirt. These continue to show in an
> > > > xm/xl
> > > > list output even when they are not paused / running / blocked - causing
> > > > my
> > > > initscript to think they are still running.
> > > > 
> > > > The ways I can think of detecting this are *very* hacky and I wouldn't
> > > > feel
> > > > comfortable to including them in widely used packages.
> > > > 
> > > > I'm wondering if people have some spare time that they review the logic
> > > > in
> > > > this initscript and provide feedback / suggestions / fixes /
> > > > improvements that
> > > > I can roll into the scripts to enhance them for all.
> > > 
> > > Is it actually a good idea to mix and match different toolstacks on the
> > > same host? If somebody intends to use libvirt, surely she would want to
> > > use it for everything?
> > 
> > This is the interesting question... which probably leads into a more
> > important question... What is the best practices for config management
> > and defining configuration for DomU's?
> > 
> > While I recommend that people use a plain text config file in
> > /etc/xen (although really the files can be just about anywhere) and
> > then links to various auto-start DomU's in /etc/xen/auto as a general
> > rule.
> > 
> > Am I correct in thinking that libvirt only keeps details of domains
> > in the xenstore? Is this recommended? Although more a libvirt question
> > - can libvirt be configured to use config files in /etc/xen or
> > similar?
> 
> I think this is largely distribution dependant. In the case of EL/Fedora,
> libvirt seems to be the distro's intended way of managing VMs, at least for
> their primary supported virtualization method (KVM).
> 
> In the interest of clarity and maintainability I have seen the light
> and converted my VMs to simple text files in /etc/xen/ (there seems to be
> no documentation on how to edit most of the settings in xenstore). Some
> consensus on the best way would be good, though.

I think that using simple text files in /etc/xen for VM configs is
clearly the right way to go from the Xen POV.