Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 439955
libvirt should record OS type
Last modified: 2008-04-01 00:08:38 EDT
Description of problem: The selected operating system type (set when installing an OS in virt-manager) should be stored. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): libvirt-0.4.1-2.fc virt-manager-0.5.3-2.fc8 How reproducible: Every time Steps to Reproduce: 1. Install new virtual machine with virt-manager 2. Select OS Windows -> Windows XP 3. Finish installation Actual results: No information that this was WinXP included in the XML output in /etc/libvirt/qemu Expected results: Additional metadata included in the XML description, to assist in the future Additional info: While changing the default or post-installation virtual environment must be avoided if at all possible, storing the additional metadata may allow defaults to change differently for different OS types. (And therefore a better upgrade experience). (eg kvm moving from rtl8139 to e1000 was harmless for linux, but painful on WinXP)
The OS type information is only intended to be used for the initial VM provisioning step, primarily to assist in handling the install media, and as a secondary task to help choose some sensible default settings. Post-install, adminstrators are intended to have full control over all settings without virt-manager second guessing them. As such OS type is irrelevant post-install - the administrator should decide what NIC type is relevant for them. Furthermore, even if we wanted to store OS type we can't because some of the hypervisors we have to handle do not support such a concept as a persistent setting.