X-Git-Url: http://git.annexia.org/?p=libguestfs.git;a=blobdiff_plain;f=TODO;h=0aeceb7a4a82ab73edaa00f0a29eb6e65115a3ab;hp=04eda6cd816abf7c43db37e13774d43a266ecac4;hb=2df2f2854ed2d1f9857ef3c5aaca29810cf3c506;hpb=f18af71ff43dd87d343b459134a470900f84b833

diff --git a/TODO b/TODO
index 04eda6c..0aeceb7 100644
--- a/TODO
+++ b/TODO
@@ -37,13 +37,109 @@ error cases.
 
 For virt-inspector:
 
- - Are PV network drivers enabled (see /etc/modprobe.conf):
+ - Make a libvirt XML config
 
-     alias eth0 xennet
-     alias scsi_hostadapter xenblk
+ - Test over available OSes
 
- - ... and can it boot from a PV driver (have to look inside the initrd)
+ - Add 'reged' / NT registry support.
 
- - Make a libvirt XML config
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
- - Test over available OSes
+Use virtio_blk by default.  It's faster and more natural.
+Unfortunately it seems like this will rename all devices - see next
+item.
+
+Note: virtio_blk *IS* supported by all our minimum platforms,
+ie. CentOS 5.3, Fedora 11, Debian.
+
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+"Device independent" naming for devices.
+
+With a Fedora-based appliance, using libata driver, devices have
+"SCSI" names like /dev/sda.
+
+With an EPEL-based appliance, using old ide driver, devices have names
+like /dev/hda.
+
+If we use virtio_blk, devices will have names like /dev/vda.
+
+What a mess.
+
+So the idea would be to add a device independent naming scheme, such
+as the one used by grub:
+
+  "(hdX)"   X = 0 means 'a', X = 1 means 'b' and so on.
+  "(hdX,Y)" Device X, partition Y (in grub, this counts from 0 which is
+            deeply confusing).
+
+There would have to be a very simple rule.  If guestfsd was expecting
+a /dev block device or partition name, then the alternate form can be
+used, and we would just look it up using the normal output of
+guestfs_list_devices.
+
+Maybe best is to use /dev/sda as the "standard" naming.  That
+shouldn't cause conflicts in the appliance because we tightly control
+what drivers are available.
+
+Note there's a lot of hackery that currently exists in tests.c which
+could be *removed* if we made this change.
+
+Open: Should the substitution be done in the library layer or in the
+daemon?
+
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Qemu options -- After discussion with the KVM developers, they have
+recommended some flags which will improve the safety and reliability
+of KVM.  Need to test that these also work under qemu (or at least, do
+no harm):
+
+-no-hpet      HPET support is broken and should be disabled.
+
+-rtc-td-hack  Keeps the rtc clock source track time correctly.
+
+-drive file=...,if=[ide|virtio],cache=off
+              cache=off is necessary to improve reliability in the
+	      event of a system crash when writing.
+
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+"Standalone/local mode"
+
+Instead of running guestfsd (the daemon) inside qemu, there should be
+an option to just run guestfsd directly.
+
+The architecture in this mode would look like:
+
+     +------------------+
+     | main program     |
+     |------------------|
+     | libguestfs       |
+     +--------^---------+
+          |   | reply
+      cmd |   |
+     +----v-------------+
+     | guestfsd         |
+     +------------------+
+
+Notes:
+
+(1) This only makes sense if we are running as root.
+
+(2) There is no console / kernel messages in this configuration, but
+we might consider capturing stderr from the daemon.
+
+(3) guestfs_config and guestfs_add_drive become no-ops.
+
+Obviously in this configuration, commands are run directly on the
+local machine's disks.  You could just run the commands themselves
+directly, but libguestfs provides a convenient API and language
+bindings.  Also deals with tricky stuff like parsing the output of the
+LVM commands.  Also we get to leverage other code such as
+virt-inspector.
+
+This is mainly useful from live CDs, ie. virt-p2v.
+
+Should we bother having the daemon at all and just link the guestfsd
+code directly into libguestfs?