[virt-tools-list] [RFC] VM configuration templates

[Peter Crowther]

As a slightly different wish, but perhaps related, I'd love a tool that
could consume several host configuration definitions and tell me the
maximal guest configuration that could run on any of them. It's not simple
to guess processor features and their support on heterogeneous hosts.

Use case: as a developer, when creating a new virtual machine, I want to
know that I will be able to migrate it between my laptop, our development
host (a fat desktop), and our staging environment, so that my organisation
spends as little effort (hence time and money) as possible rebuilding VMs
due to location changes.

Yes, I know we should be using a configuration management system. We do
(puppet). But for some uses, the extra cost of encoding the configuration
that way isn't cost-effective for the use we'll make of a VM.

Cheers,

Peter

On 3 Aug 2017 3:09 p.m., "Cole Robinson" <crobinso at redhat.com> wrote:

> On 07/24/2017 04:04 AM, Cedric Bosdonnat wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > While working on a special VM setup here, I was wondering about
> introducing
> > some configuration templates in virt-manager.
> >
> > We could have a drop down list somewhere in the UI to select a template.
> Here
> > is a list of possible templates we could propose:
> >
> >   * 'Full host VM'
> >       expose as much as possible of the host to a single VM
> >       no migration possible
> >   * 'Easily migratable VM'
> >   * 'normal-sized VM, as fast as possible'
> >       no migration possible either
> >
> > Obviously choosing one of these templates would be optional. That drop
> down
> > list could be in the final page of the new guest wizard.
> >
> > Any opinion on such a feature?
> >
>
> Sorry for the late response.
>
> Besides <cpu> setting, what types of features do you see tweaking for 'Full
> host' vs 'easily' vs 'normal'?
>
> If the main differentiator is 'how migratable is this VM' I don't like the
> idea of putting that into the New VM wizard, since I think 99% of
> virt-manager
> users don't care about that, and migration is a difficult concept with a
> lot
> of VM config caveats, plus it usually requires host configuration outside
> of
> virt-manager to get working so it's unlikely to be something that 'just
> works'.
>
> However I'm more open to a kind of migration vs performance setting in the
> Preferences dialog that determines the default New VM setup. But to discuss
> that we should start with a list of features you see enabling/disabling
>
> Thanks,
> Cole
>
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