ondrejhome/fast-vm

'fast-vm' is a script for defining VMs from images provided in thin LVM pool.

fast-vm's Issues

Better auditing logs

Idea:

• be able to tell when the VM was
  • last running
  • last accessed via fast-vm ssh/console commands
• be able to tell who has done some actions to VMs

The expected outcome is to be able to determine which VMs were not run or accessed for extended period of time and be able to tell which users they belong to. (this information may be useful for automated notification on inactivity on shared servers)

RHEL 8 UEFI support with pre-q35 machines

Issue: RHEL 8 contains package edk2-ovmf that is automatically pulled in with dependencies when installing libvirt and provides "some" UEFI firmware. This firmware however seems to only run with Q35 machine type which is not the one that get used when defining VM from fast-vm libvirt template. This firmware is usable when used with Q35 machine that requires 'no IDE' and 'PCIe' root port. So here we would either need new templates for Q35 machines so this runs with what is installed on RHEL8 or providing separate location for firmware in libvirt xml file.
In both cases a separate XML would be needed. For now the dirty (and working) way is to replace one symlink that RHEL 8 uses so we can use procedure that worked well on RHEL 7.

signing&verifying of image/hack/xml files

As the images and definition files can get corrupted (or tampered with) during transfer, the fast-vm should support some signing and verifying mechanism to detect this and warn user about this.
Questions:

• where the signatures should be (separate file, part of existing files)
• how to ensure that the signature was not tampered with
• compatibility with existing image/hack/xml files

bash completion for keydist/scp

Based on PR #34 add and test bash completion with scp and keydist commands.

diff --git a/fast-vm.bash_completion b/fast-vm.bash_completion
index defd6f8..48a542d 100644
--- a/fast-vm.bash_completion
+++ b/fast-vm.bash_completion
@@ -94,6 +94,21 @@ _fast-vm()
 		return 0
 	fi
 
+	if [ "$cword" -eq 3 ] && [ ${COMP_WORDS[1]} == "scp" ]; then
+		COMPREPLY=( $( compgen -W "vm:" -f -- "$cur" ) )
+		return 0
+	fi
+	if [ "$cword" -eq 4 ] && [ ${COMP_WORDS[1]} == "scp" ]; then
+		# source path did /not/ contain "vm:", so prompt only that
+		COMPREPLY=( $( compgen -W "vm:" ) )
+		return 0
+	fi
+	if [ "$cword" -ge 5 ] && [ ${COMP_WORDS[1]} == "scp" ]; then
+		# source path /did/ contain "vm:", so exclude it from destination
+		COMPREPLY=( $( compgen -f -- "$cur" ) )
+		return 0
+	fi
+
 	case $prev in
 		import_image|import_custom_image|import_profile)
 			return 0
@@ -122,7 +137,7 @@ _fast-vm()
 			COMPREPLY=( $( compgen -W "all active inactive" -- "$cur" ) )
 			return 0
 			;;
-		start|stop|delete|console|ssh|info|resize)
+		start|stop|delete|console|keydist|scp|ssh|info|resize)
 			local vm_numbers
 			case $prev in
 				start|resize)
@@ -131,7 +146,7 @@ _fast-vm()
 				delete|edit_note|info)
 					vm_numbers=$(fast-vm list all short)
 				;;
-				console|ssh|stop)
+				console|keydist|scp|ssh|stop)
 					vm_numbers=$(fast-vm list active short)
 				;;
 			esac
@@ -142,7 +157,7 @@ _fast-vm()
 
 	$split && return 0
 	if [ "$cword" -lt 2 ]; then
-		COMPREPLY=( $( compgen -W 'import_image import_custom_image export_image remove_image resize_image import_profile remove_profile edit_note list_images list_profiles create start stop delete resize console ssh list info' -- "$cur" ) )
+		COMPREPLY=( $( compgen -W 'import_image import_custom_image export_image remove_image resize_image import_profile remove_profile edit_note keydist list_images list_profiles create start stop delete resize console scp ssh list info' -- "$cur" ) )
 		return 0
 	fi

use polkit authorization

Document how to use polkit in libvirt for minimal operation of fast-vm. This should allow the tighter restrictions for libvirt to fast-vm users useful in shared environments.

https://libvirt.org/aclpolkit.html

Idea:

• make example of minimal policy that can create and operate VMs with fast-vm prefix and keep everything else disallowed
• make example of more relaxed policy where all operations are permitted for the fast-vm group so this can be used as in-place replacement for the current setting (in 1.2) that changes the permissions on libvirt socket to allow this group - ideally make this work without need to change default libvirtd.conf

address warnings from lintian for Debian package

• - files in /usr/libexec/ - ignore, will get resolved by Debian using FHS 3.0

W: fast-vm: non-standard-dir-in-usr usr/libexec/
N: 
N:    The FHS says "No large software packages should use a direct
N:    subdirectory under the /usr hierarchy". This package contains a
N:    directory in /usr that is not mentioned in the Filesystem Hierarchy
N:    Standard.
N:    
N:    Refer to Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (The /usr Hierarchy) for details.
N:    
N:    Severity: normal, Certainty: certain
N:    
N:    Check: files, Type: binary, udeb
N: 

http://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/FHS_3.0/fhs/ch04s07.html
FHS 3.0 not yet part of Debian policy
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=787816

• - files in /usr/libexec/ 2 - ignore, will get resolved by Debian using FHS 3.0

W: fast-vm: file-in-unusual-dir usr/libexec/fast-vm-helper.sh
N: 
N:    This file or symbolic link is in a directory where files are not
N:    normally installed by Debian packages.
N:    
N:    Severity: normal, Certainty: certain
N:    
N:    Check: files, Type: binary, udeb
N: 

http://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/FHS_3.0/fhs/ch04s07.html
FHS 3.0 not yet part of Debian policy
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=787816

• - fast-vm.conf man page - commit 5819ada

W: fast-vm: manpage-has-bad-whatis-entry usr/share/man/man5/fast-vm.conf.5.gz
N: 
N:    Each manual page should start with a "NAME" section, which lists the
N:    name and a brief description of the page separated by "\-". The "NAME"
N:    section is parsed by lexgrog and used to generate a database that's
N:    queried by commands like apropos and whatis. This tag indicates that
N:    lexgrog was unable to parse the NAME section of this manual page.
N:    
N:    For manual pages that document multiple programs, functions, files, or
N:    other things, the part before "\-" should list each separated by a comma
N:    and a space. Each thing listed must not contain spaces; a man page for a
N:    two-part command like "fs listacl" must use something like "fs_listacl"
N:    in the "NAME" section so that it can be parsed by lexgrog.
N:    
N:    Refer to the lexgrog(1) manual page, the groff_man(7) manual page, and
N:    the groff_mdoc(7) manual page for details.
N:    
N:    Severity: normal, Certainty: certain
N:    
N:    Check: manpages, Type: binary
N: 

• - fast-vm list man page
• - missing fast-vm-net-cleanup man page - 753a2d9

W: fast-vm: manpage-has-bad-whatis-entry usr/share/man/man8/fast-vm-list.8.gz
W: fast-vm: binary-without-manpage usr/bin/fast-vm-net-cleanup
N: 
N:    Each binary in /usr/bin, /usr/sbin, /bin, /sbin or /usr/games should
N:    have a manual page
N:    
N:    Note that though the man program has the capability to check for several
N:    program names in the NAMES section, each of these programs should have
N:    its own manual page (a symbolic link to the appropriate manual page is
N:    sufficient) because other manual page viewers such as xman or tkman
N:    don't support this.
N:    
N:    If the name of the man page differs from the binary by case, man may be
N:    able to find it anyway; however, it is still best practice to make the
N:    case of the man page match the case of the binary.
N:    
N:    If the man pages are provided by another package on which this package
N:    depends, lintian may not be able to determine that man pages are
N:    available. In this case, after confirming that all binaries do have man
N:    pages after this package and its dependencies are installed, please add
N:    a lintian override.
N:    
N:    Refer to Debian Policy Manual section 12.1 (Manual pages) for details.
N:    
N:    Severity: normal, Certainty: possible
N:    
N:    Check: manpages, Type: binary
N: 

allow use of external network for fast-vm VMs

Idea:

• allow use of interfaced bridged to external network where it is expected that fast-vm won't be managing the DHCP
• fast-vm should be able to provide creations of VMs with predictable MAC address when they are placed into external network with DHCP and also not try to add the configuration for DHCP into libvirt if we add VM into external network

Implementation:
TODO

`fast-vm import_image` sets `stty -echo` when used with `pv`

After fast-vm import_image I have to run stty sane or stty echo to restore echo in my terminal. This only happens in bash when pv is installed and is used by fast-vm. In zsh I don't have this problem.

$ stty -a
speed 38400 baud; rows 43; columns 173; line = 0;
intr = ^C; quit = ^\; erase = ^?; kill = ^U; eof = ^D; eol = <undef>; eol2 = <undef>; swtch = <undef>; start = ^Q; stop = ^S; susp = ^Z; rprnt = ^R; werase = ^W; lnext = ^V;
discard = ^O; min = 1; time = 0;
-parenb -parodd -cmspar cs8 -hupcl -cstopb cread -clocal -crtscts
-ignbrk brkint ignpar -parmrk -inpck -istrip -inlcr -igncr icrnl ixon -ixoff -iuclc -ixany imaxbel iutf8
opost -olcuc -ocrnl onlcr -onocr -onlret -ofill -ofdel nl0 cr0 tab0 bs0 vt0 ff0
isig icanon iexten echo echoe echok -echonl -noflsh -xcase -tostop -echoprt echoctl echoke -flusho -extproc

$ fast-vm import_image fedora29 http://ftp.linux.cz/pub/linux/people/ondrej_famera/fastvm-images/generated/6g__fedora-29.img.xz https://raw.githubusercontent.com/OndrejHome/fast-vm-public-images/master/fedora/xml/fedora-28-current.xml https://raw.githubusercontent.com/OndrejHome/fast-vm-public-images/master/fedora/hacks/6g_fedora-29-hacks.sh  
[__][inf] provided empty file path
[__][inf] Detected remote file with size 340209204
[__][inf] provided empty file path
[__][inf] Detected remote file with size 1443
[__][inf] downloading https://raw.githubusercontent.com/OndrejHome/fast-vm-public-images/master/fedora/xml/fedora-28-current.xml
[__]into /tmp/tmp.cmmaqLbyiL
[__][inf] provided empty file path
[__][inf] Detected remote file with size 793
[__][inf] downloading https://raw.githubusercontent.com/OndrejHome/fast-vm-public-images/master/fedora/hacks/6g_fedora-29-hacks.sh
[__]into /tmp/tmp.GrKEP8Whc1
[__][inf] Size of image was determined from the filename to be 6G.
[__][inf] creating LV fastvm-fedora29 ...
[__][inf] importing image http://ftp.linux.cz/pub/linux/people/ondrej_famera/fastvm-images/generated/6g__fedora-29.img.xz into /dev/serenity/fastvm-fedora29
 download:  324MiB 0:00:44 [7.35MiB/s] [==================================================================================================================>] 100%            
   unpack: 6.00GiB 0:00:45 [ 133MiB/s] [==================================================================================================================>] 100%            
0+767635 records in
0+767635 records out
6442450944 bytes (6.4 GB, 6.0 GiB) copied, 45.8734 s, 140 MB/s
[__][ok] Image fedora29 imported

# at this point there is no echo
$ speed 38400 baud; rows 43; columns 173; line = 0;
intr = ^C; quit = ^\; erase = ^?; kill = ^U; eof = ^D; eol = <undef>; eol2 = <undef>; swtch = <undef>; start = ^Q; stop = ^S; susp = ^Z; rprnt = ^R; werase = ^W; lnext = ^V;
discard = ^O; min = 1; time = 0;
-parenb -parodd -cmspar cs8 -hupcl -cstopb cread -clocal -crtscts
-ignbrk brkint ignpar -parmrk -inpck -istrip -inlcr -igncr icrnl ixon -ixoff -iuclc -ixany imaxbel iutf8
opost -olcuc -ocrnl onlcr -onocr -onlret -ofill -ofdel nl0 cr0 tab0 bs0 vt0 ff0
isig -icanon iexten -echo echoe echok -echonl -noflsh -xcase tostop -echoprt echoctl echoke -flusho -extproc

Apparently pv -c is known for this kind of behavior: https://serverfault.com/a/690183

The workaround would be to run stty sane or stty echo after pv -c invocation.

allow multiple VM numbers to be specified for some operations

Idea:
Allow for some common operations (start,stop,delete) to accept multiple VM numbers.
For example: fast-vm start 50 51 52 (will start 3 VMs)
Notes:

• should the start be parallel?
• what happens when one VM fails - should other continue and what should be the overall return code of command?
• no advances features like 'fast-vm start XX XY XZ ssh /some/script

multi-NIC VM fails to remove correct MAC when it is being deleted

Issue: fast-vm VM which was edited to use multiple NICs fails to remove correct card as the script doesn't expect more than one network card.

Workaround: After error running the 'fast-vm-net-cleanup' removes the missed DHCP reservation.

"fast-vm list" keep asking for sudo password

when runing fast-vm list, it errors with sudo password is required.
Once, I run the command with sudo, then it stops asking.

$ fast-vm list
sudo: a password is required
VM# Image name      Status       Profile_name    Size( %used )  Activity  Notes
sudo: a password is required
-:1: parser error : Document is empty
/usr/bin/fast-vm: line 208: (1638929036-)/86400: syntax error: operand expected (error token is ")/86400")
 75 rhel-7.5        shut off                                         ago  : 
-:1: parser error : Document is empty
/usr/bin/fast-vm: line 208: (1638929036-)/86400: syntax error: operand expected (error token is ")/86400")
 79 rhel-7.9        shut off                                         ago  : 
-:1: parser error : Document is empty
/usr/bin/fast-vm: line 208: (1638929037-)/86400: syntax error: operand expected (error token is ")/86400")
 88 rhel-8.3        shut off                                         ago  : 
-:1: parser error : Document is empty
/usr/bin/fast-vm: line 208: (1638929037-)/86400: syntax error: operand expected (error token is ")/86400")
 89 rhel-8.3        shut off                                         ago  : 

I'm running fast-vm 1.7

# rpm -q fast-vm
fast-vm-1.7-1.el7.noarch

Look at Lago (https://github.com/lago-project/lago)

Hi,

I bumped into this project by accident. My team developed Lago (https://github.com/lago-project/lago) and it seems to be pretty close. We have opted not to use LVM thin LVs (as it requires setup), but qcow over raw (sparse!) images, which seems like it might be an interesting project for you to compare to.

[Feature Request] option to create loop device when installing fast-vm

When installing fast-vm, it requires extra LVM to create lvm thinpool.
If there is no extra space left on your local disk, this could be an issue.
It would be great when installing fast-vm it has the option to create a loop device, instead of asking for lvm to create lvm thinpool.

Please refer to the step below that I used.

1. create sparse disk
truncate -s 100G /home/jarame/VirtualMachines/fast-vm.img

2. create fast-vm systemd service to mount loopback device
tee -a /etc/systemd/system/fast-vm.service <<EOM
[Unit]
Description=fast-vm loop devices
DefaultDependencies=no
Conflicts=umount.target
Before=local-fs.target
After=systemd-udevd.service home.mount
Required=systemd-udevd.service

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/sbin/losetup /dev/loop100 "/home/jarame/VirtualMachines/fast-vm.img"
ExecStop=/sbin/losetup -d /dev/loop100
TimeoutSec=60
RemainAfterExit=yes

[Install]
WantedBy=local-fs.target
Also=systemd-udevd.service
EOM

systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable --now fast-vm.service

4. check loopback device
losetup -l

5. create pv, vg
pvcreate /dev/loop100
vgcreate vg-fastvm /dev/loop100

7. create lv thin pool (configure-fast-vm)
lvcreate -n lv-fastvm -l 100%FREE vg-fastvm
lvconvert --type thin-pool vg-fastvm/lv-fastvm

How can I export my instance as image ?

Hello Ondrej,

Thank you so much for fast-vm!

I have a question on usage.

I started one instance and installed and configured some applications.
And want to make this as an image similarly snapshot.

I checked out fast-vm --help, I can see "/usr/bin/fast-vm export_image ImageName <xz|gz>". But it looks I can export image I imported.

How can I do this ? Kindly let me know ?

Many Thanks,
Ted Won

VM's names

Virtual machine gets following hostnames:
fastvm-DISTRO-V1-V2-VMNumber
In my opinion it would be a little bit more practical if it was:
fastvm-VMNumber-DISTRO-V1-V2

Not a big deal anyway :)

use `virt-sparsify` to decrease the occupied size of disks

IDEA:
Use virt-sparsify to reduce the occupied space on disks of machines that are not active

virt-sparsify --in-place /dev/vg_data/fastvm-centos-7.6-XX

Add option that can do this cleanup. It is needed to change ownership of block device (fast-vm-helper.sh can be utilized to do this.

man virt-spartify
...
       In-place sparsification works using discard (a.k.a trim or unmap) support.
...

If implemented this might be part of periodic cron job (daily/weekly?). We need to ensure that disk will be locked while cleaning up the machine. Consider having option to either disable this or document how to add this if disabled by default.

UEFI image support

Use of UEFI in libvirt requires some additional storage for EUFI and this should be ideally handled by fast-vm. How the fast-vm should detect that image need uefi? (XML definition file?, extra flag?, ...)

run command after VMs SSH is ready

Option to run command after the SSH server on the VM starts.
This can be used to run scripts that expects the VM is running, for example run ansible script as soon as the machine is started.

scp with multiple paths docs+bash completion

TODO:

• update man pages with syntax denoting use of multiple paths for scp
• update bash completion so it can complete properly with multiple paths (some initial version maybe did so just need to get it back and re-test it)

activity tracking issue when 'sg' requires password for group change

When user is part of group that needs to be authenticated when changed using sg command, the fast-vm will prompt for password. Providing wrong password results into either skipping updating the notes file (minor issue) or not creating the notes file (major issue - as then VM will be considered to be owned by root).

`fast-vm` package dependencies

Based on discussion with @micharbet it looks that despite user guide and other guides the packages on CentOS/RHEL or dependencies for some role seems to slip out from radar of users when installing fast-vm which then leads to state that something doesn't work, or just prints warning and user may ignore it until it hits the real issue later.

Idea here is to have 2 fast-vm packages:

• fast-vm containing all "relevant" dependencies mentioned in user guide as required
• fast-vm-minimal containing minimal set of packages that can get fast-vm up and running without fatal crashes (in case that this would be considered for inclusion into any upstream distribution)
• TODO update user_guide

hack files on VM delete

Idea:

• Support hack files also on VM deletion as the hack files on creation might create something that users would like to clean up once the machine is deleted.

Implementation:

• delete hack_file will be optional and only available if create hack_file exists

Updated commands:

• fast-vm import_image <image_name> ,image_path> <libvirt_xml> [<create_hack_file> <delete_hack_file>]
• fast-vm delete <vm_number> [<delete_hack_file>]

Location of delete hack_file will be same as regular hack_file with prefix 'delete-'.

Image name cannot end with -XX (number)

I tried to import fedora image:

#  fast-vm import_image fedora-28 http://ftp.linux.cz/pub/linux/people/ondrej_famera/fastvm-images/generated/6g__fedora-28.img.xz https://raw.githubusercontent.com/OndrejHome/fast-vm-public-images/develop/fedora/xml/fedora-28.xml https://raw.githubusercontent.com/OndrejHome/fast-vm-public-images/develop/fedora/hacks/6g_fedora-28-hacks.sh
[__][err] ImageName cannot end with '-XX' where XX is number.

I could do it when I change image name from fedora-28 to e.g. fedora-2.8 But this is just wrong.
Please kindly remove this limitation.

-michael-

better setup/configuration script

Current script is divided into multiples scripts to allow partial configuration and fast-vm itself only considers last value in configuration file.

video: fast-vm basic usage and introduction

Make short collection of videos for showing how to work with fast-vm.

Considerations:

• video with voice or just silent one with comments?
  • so far the asciinema is used as text-only video format
• where to place the video? (ideal place is the one that doesn't need a registration)
  • asciinema.org + sources in this repo
• use a video format or only some service that records and replays the command line nicely?
  • asciinema.org + sources in this repo, playable using asciinema utility

TODO videos:

• creating custom Image
• working with profiles
• resizing VMs and images

To create videos the asciinema rec filename command can be used. The final editing can be done in any text editor.

customizable size of images

Idea:

• allow the size of image to be configurable (currently is fixed at 10GB)

Possible implementation/TODO:

• make the size of the image part of the imported image name to apply size different to default 10GB, for example filename my-image-size20.xz will create image with 20GB disk drive while filename other-image.xz will default to 10GB one
• add command to resize the image size once it is imported in system (this would require lvresize action on the imported image
• add size information to list of images and also to list of VMs

change way of storing VM notes

use the virsh desc domain as the only storage for the VM notes and other metadata instead of file used now.

• implement use of metadata functions instead of current use of files
• drop the need for 'sg' in code and requirements
• create script for transforming data from files into new metadata format
• update configure-fast-vm to not ask about note storage and allow it to rather ask for conversion

Identified cons of this change:

• reading data from libvirt will always be slower than from files (50-70% time increase in reading metadata) - this is heavily used in fast-vm list where the slowdown is visible (on my testing machine from 0.7s to 1.1s with 10 VMs)

Ubuntu LTS support

With Debian packages it should be possible to run fast-vm also on Ubuntu.
TODO:

• test on LTS versions 16.04, 18.04 (once released)
• upload packages to PPA - https://launchpad.net/~ondrejhome/+archive/ubuntu/fast-vm
• document installation and limitations

Issues so far:

• On 16.04 the package names are different from debian 9 and selinux-relabel is not available at all in libguestfs - which means no support for VMs with SELinux based systems

validate inputs in configure-fast-vm

Currently no validation is done and despite it may become obvious that value provided was wrong, the proper validation would be much better. Recent issue: inputed whole subnet instead of just XX number for fast-vm network. This caused the network not to define, but provided very little why.

run mostly as non-root user

Extract the parts of fast-vm requiring the root privilege into smaller helper script, that could be run through sudo and leave everything else in the normal script to be run as user.

Stuff that must be run as root:

• lvcreate, lvremove
• ? access to LV devices (chgrp) for dd operations and guestfish
• ? qemu:///system - this might be possible to rework into not needing root but only socket to qemu:///system
• ? bash completion

Things to consider:

• multiuser ready script
  • configuration stored in per-user configs
  • user-aware bash-completion
  • locking of some operations (VM creation)

multiuser fast-vm

It might be desirable to do some user separation or at least locking to prevent issues when multiple users are using fast-vm on single system (use case: collaboration server).

• configuration stored in per-user configs
• locking of some operations (VM creation)
• user-aware bash-completion

Debian 9 support

Proof of concept on Debian 9.3:

• apt-get install libvirt-daemon libvirt-clients libvirt-daemon-system pv ovmf bash-completion dnsmasq-utils make curl sudo thin-provisioning-tools gawk
• make install installation works - will need a DEB package
• need to change #!/bin/sh to #!/bin/bash in /usr/bin/fast-vm for proper operation
• awk seems to match differently the strings here - I have to use awk '{ s=substr($0, 0, 5); print s; }' on https://github.com/OndrejHome/fast-vm/blob/master/fast-vm#L83 - seems to disappear when gawk is installed, need to further check
• for public images we need guestfish command - apt-get install libguestfs-tools

Things that needs to be done:

• fast-vm-public-images - debian 9.x image - so we have a stable testing environment
• instructions in docs/user_guide.txt for Debian - bc34219
• check why #!/bin/sh fails and fix places where needed
• document packages needed on Debian for fast-vm-public-images
• DEB package for Debian

Outlook is optimistic.

version 1.0 checklist

• make option to allow VM deletion only to owner of VM note or root
• automatically create empty note on VM creation - this shows the username of VM owner
• tentative: more verbose accounting of fast-vm usage - counting how much VMs and time user spent using fast-vm or for how long the VMs were running (maybe also with consumed CPU/memory/disk usage)
• add configuration option for notes directory to configure-fast-vm
• check if upgrading fast-vm respects /etc/sudoers.d/... settings and doesn't overwrite them
• re-check again issue with re-use of same VM number - create machine XX, boot it up, delete XX, create new machine with same XX and boot up, observe if IP assignment is correct

RHEL 8 compatibility check

Idea:
Check what needs to be changed for fast-vm to run properly on RHEL 8.

TODO

• check firewalling, in default installation the VMs gets IP only when firewalld gets stopped
• figure out how to properly fix the firewall issue
• build custom qemu-kvm package as for RHEL/CentOS 7.x and document in PACKAGING
  • not all dependencies for qemu-kvm seems to be present in Beta repos :/
  • on RHEL 8.0 it is possible to buld qemu-kvm package with some difficulties - https://access.redhat.com/discussions/4342891
• build custom seabios package as for RHEL/CentOS 7.x and document in PACKAGING
  • configuration options seems to changed places - check if the config.seabios-256k is still relevant or if it takes defaults from config.seabios-128k
• update docs/user_guide.txt to reflect any specifics of RHEL8
• test out older images that requires changes qemu-kvm and seabios packages to confirm that they works well

fast-vm-repo

allow the fast-vm to import images from virt-builder compatible repositories. Allow fast-vm-repo to parse additional fast-vm specific data from repositories to download image+libvirt_definition+hacks_file.
fast-vm-repo is inteded to be separate script that will just make it easier to import images to fast-vm.

Missing guestfish (must be installed manually)

On CentOS host with fresh installation of Fast-VM I obtained error message [1]
missing 'guestfish' was later installed manually and error while configuring netxt VM disappeared.
However the first one (#75 in my example) remained on storage and unconfigured - no host name, no network, etc..

Note: fast-vm was installed from rpm, so I think guestfish might be in dependencies

[1]
$ fast-vm create centos-7.5 75
[75][inf] using file /etc/fast-vm/config-centos-7.5.xml as libvirt XML
[75][inf] using file /etc/fast-vm/hacks-centos-7.5.sh as hack file
[75][inf] defining virtual machine 'fastvm-centos-7.5-75' in libvirt
Domain fastvm-centos-7.5-75 defined from /tmp/tmp.6HhdGA53jp.xml

Domain title updated successfully
[75][inf] creating disk 'fastvm-centos-7.5-75'
[75][inf] adding static lease for 192.168.22.75 into libvirts DHCP
[75][inf] applying hacks from /etc/fast-vm/hacks-centos-7.5.sh
which: no guestfish in (/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/root/bin)
[!!!] Command 'guestfish' not found (Install it!). Making changes to VM FAILED.
[75][err] It is not possible to use image centos-7.5 for creating VM now as it is being used by fast-vm or other process at the moment

fast-vm profiles

Idea:

• Allow having single disk image with multiple combinations of libvirt_xml+hack_files.

New commands:

• fast-vm import_profile <profile_name> <existing_image_name> <libvirt_xml> [<hack_file>]
• fast-vm remove_profile <profile_name>

Updated commands:

• fast-vm create <image_name/profile_name> ...
• fast-vm list_images - will now contain also profiles