On Tue, 2014-06-10 at 17:21 +0100, Lars Kurth wrote: > Hi all, > > following the discussion on about documentation, I was wondering whether > we need to look at a standard way in which we recommend how to provision > images for VMs. Am starting this with a Xen hat, but the discussion > should not be specific to this. There are a number of options, but all > have some trade-offs > > == #1 virt-install == > > Advantages: similar to KVM > > Disadvantages: may cause weird issues / confusion with people switching > back to xl. The core issue is that with the current version of xen and > libvirt, this only works with xm (when xl is used, this can create some > undefined behavior). However as we have seen in some recent threads on > this list, people tend to mix which can cause problems. > ... I've chosen the virt-install method on CentOS 5 precisely because it is like KVM. I was hoping it would fulfill the promise of being hypervisor agnostic. I'm hoping it continues to be available on future versions of CentOS with Xen. Though it is a waste of resources, I make all my virtual machines, Linux and MS Windows alike, fully virtualized. I can then move any of the VM's with the same virt-install --import or virsh dumpxml/edit/virsh define process. When moving a VM, usually the only thing I have to do outside of virt-install/virt-manager is add <acpi/>, <apic/> or <pae/>, which can be done with virsh edit. I don't know why some of my virtual servers need them and other don't but I have higher priority things to think about. I'm the only technical support person and I don't work 24/7. The graphical interface of virt-manager makes it possible for non-tech people to see what is running and see consoles to restart any misbehaving VM's (usually MS Windows VM's). I have completely eliminated my use of xm.