[virt-tools-list] Ubuntu grub-pc package needs virtio block s/n support

[Cole Robinson]

On 06/17/2011 10:36 AM, Ken Stailey wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> If you look at the libvirt wiki page:
> 
> http://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#elementsDisks
> 
> You see:
> ``serial
>     If present, this specify serial number of virtual hard drive. For example, it may look as <serial>WD-WMAP9A966149</serial>. Since 0.7.1 ''
> 
> Where "serial" is not RS232 or anything tty-related it's a "serial number" on a virtio disk.
> 
> If you look at LP: #604355 here:
> 
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/604335
> 
> You see that you cannot successfully run "sudo dpkg-reconfigure grub-pc" because there is a postinst script inside that package that depends on there being entries under /dev/disk/by-id for the drives to select to offer to have grub2 installed on.
> 
> Because udev uses disk serial numbers to populate /dev/disk/by-id not setting the serial number is fatal to the operation of the script inside that package.
> 
> There are probably other reasons for wanting to set the serial number on a virtio block device one but that's my biggest issue.
> 
> I'll file a formal request via
> http://virt-manager.et.redhat.com/page/BugReporting#Feature_Requests
> 
> but I wanted to give a quick notification about this.
> 

virt-manager/virt-install definitely need to provide an option to set
the disk serial number manually.

But maybe there should be some libvirt option to auto generate a random
serial number for all disk devices? Probably something to put in
qemu.conf or similar.

- Cole