Description of problem: virt-install fails when trying to install Scientific Linux 4.6 as a paravirtualized guest, claiming that it can't find an installable image. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): python-virtinst-0.300.2-8.el5 How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Run virt-install against a scientific linux installation tree with 'virt-inst -n foobar -l http://my.os.tree/sl/4.6/x86_64' Actual results: virt-inst fails with the error: ValueError: Could not find an installable distribution at 'http://newman.ultralight.org/os/scientificlinux/4.6/x86_64' Expected results: sl 4.6 install proceeds normally
Created attachment 306857 [details] Patch to add support for scientific linux guests
Just so you know, this patch works for Scientific Linux 5. It works much better than the patch that was originally in SL 5.0 and 5.1.
Thanks! I've committed a variant of this upstream: http://hg.et.redhat.com/virt/applications/virtinst--devel?cs=0784ae04ac12 If you want the patch submitter wants to send me a full name I'll add you to the authors list. Also I'll make sure this is pulled in for 5.3
(In reply to comment #3) > Thanks! I've committed a variant of this upstream: > > http://hg.et.redhat.com/virt/applications/virtinst--devel?cs=0784ae04ac12 > > If you want the patch submitter wants to send me a full name I'll add you to the > authors list. Also I'll make sure this is pulled in for 5.3 Feel free to list me as Michael "wart" Thomas Thanks, and I look forward to this in RHEL 5.3.
This request was evaluated by Red Hat Product Management for inclusion in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux maintenance release. Product Management has requested further review of this request by Red Hat Engineering, for potential inclusion in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux Update release for currently deployed products. This request is not yet committed for inclusion in an Update release.
I'm really not sure that Scientific Linux really needs an explicit entry in virt-manager. It is a distro derived from RHEL and as such the exact same settings used for the RHEL option should work just fine. For that matter we should arguably kill the CentOS option in the menu too.
The entire distro detection scheme needs to be overhauled anyways. Since we have the ability to test for file existence without grabbing, we can sidestep the whitelist activity and just directly touch the xen boot kernel or pxeboot kernel, or in the case of say SLES whatever crazy files we need to hack together for a boot kernel.
The distro stuff is for more than just where to grab files - it also controls what hardware devices are configured by default. eg USB graphics tablet, UTC vs localtime for clock, and IDE vs VirtIO for disk config, so we can't avoid it - these are the kind of features that are identical across all derived distros
Right, I misread your comment a bit. I was refering to the whole detect-a-distro-from-an-install-tree action. I actually didn't add scientific linux as an entry in the big os list, and I agree we should condense down centos as well to just fall use rhel. Speaking of the big OS list though, I wouldn't mind trying to slim that down a bit. We are looking at a situation in a couple years where we'll have entries for fedora 5-14 among other things.
From a qa perspective, to test this, use the command: virt-install --name sltest -r 256 --nodisks --paravirt --nographics --location http://ftp.scientificlinux.org/linux/scientific/46/x86_64 Prior to the patch this should fail with 'Installable distribution not found'. After the patch this command should succeed.
Okay, fix is in python-virtinst-0.300.2-9.el5. Setting to MODIFIED.
An advisory has been issued which should help the problem described in this bug report. This report is therefore being closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For more information on therefore solution and/or where to find the updated files, please follow the link below. You may reopen this bug report if the solution does not work for you. http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2009-0216.html
python-virtinst-0.300.2-12.el5, which comes with RHEL 5 Update 3, works for 90% of Scientific Linux versions. But it doesn't work with their "sites", or derivatives. It almost works though. The problem is that for DistroManager.py, you check for SL.releasenote, which should work in all cases. But in OSDistro.py you check for just the directory SL, which fails for "sites". I am including a patch which checks for SL.releasenote in both OSDistro.py and DistroManager.py. We are also checking for "Scientific Linux" in .treeinfo, like you are doing in other releases, but not for Scientific Linux.
Created attachment 331061 [details] python-virtinst-0.300.2-12.el5 to allow SL sites as guests
Could you provide an example of a failing URL?
http://ftp.scientificlinux.org/linux/scientific/52/i386/sites/Fermi/