Hi I am a bit confused about the configuration files for XEN user domains in Fedora. Regarding to the Users’ Manual for Xen v3.3 from xensource the configuration files should still be in /etc/xen/ like they are on RHEL5. However, on F8 they are somewhere in /var/lib/xen and have a new format (not XML?). Could someone please provide a link to a changelog, release notes or any other "official" documentation which describes this change? I could not really find an answer on http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Fedora8VirtQuickStart, and I see that many users ask this questions in other boards or mailing lists. Regards Urs
Hi, On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 10:27:16AM +0100, Urs Golla wrote:> I am a bit confused about the configuration files for XEN user domains > in Fedora. Regarding to the Users’ Manual > for Xen v3.3 from xensource the configuration files should still be in > /etc/xen/ like they are on RHEL5. However, on F8 they are somewhere in > /var/lib/xen and have a new format (not XML?). Could someone please > provide a link to a changelog, release notes or any other "official" > documentation which describes this change? I could not really find an > answer on http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Fedora8VirtQuickStart, > and I see that many users ask this questions in other boards or > mailing lists.You can use both of them. Original xen commands (xm) uses mostly text configurations in /etc/xen, Fedora commands (virsh and command which use this) are using XML configs from /var/lib. SAL
Hi, ok, but why does the file in /var/lib/xend/dom-uuid/config.sxp use such a strange syntax? I mean ''()'' instead of ''<>'' and an empty element should look like <name attribute="value"/> not (name value). if I dump the xml with virsh, it looks much more like a standard xml to me. Regards Urs On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 12:30 PM, Jan ONDREJ (SAL) <ondrejj@salstar.sk> wrote:> Hi, > > On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 10:27:16AM +0100, Urs Golla wrote: >> I am a bit confused about the configuration files for XEN user domains >> in Fedora. Regarding to the Users’ Manual >> for Xen v3.3 from xensource the configuration files should still be in >> /etc/xen/ like they are on RHEL5. However, on F8 they are somewhere in >> /var/lib/xen and have a new format (not XML?). Could someone please >> provide a link to a changelog, release notes or any other "official" >> documentation which describes this change? I could not really find an >> answer on http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Fedora8VirtQuickStart, >> and I see that many users ask this questions in other boards or >> mailing lists. > > You can use both of them. Original xen commands (xm) uses mostly text > configurations in /etc/xen, Fedora commands (virsh and command which use > this) are using XML configs from /var/lib. > > SAL >
Urs Golla <urs.golla@gmail.com> writes:> Hi, > > ok, but why does the file in /var/lib/xend/dom-uuid/config.sxp use > such a strange syntax? I mean ''()'' instead of ''<>'' and an empty > element should look like <name attribute="value"/> not (name value).Because it''s not XML.> if I dump the xml with virsh, it looks much more like a standard xml > to me.Because it''s XML. The .sxp files use Xen''s native syntax, which is from the sexp family[*]. libvirt uses XML. [*] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-expression
Hi Markus Thanks for your reply!> Because it''s not XML.That really explains a lot ;-) I always assumed the "legacy" format from /etc/xen/mydomainconfig (like in RHEL 5) is the native XEN syntax (I see this is not the case.). So, the xml format from libvirt is like a replacement for the configuration in /etc/xen/mydomainconfig? But if I use virt-install (e.g. in Fedora 8) to install a new machine, it does not create a file /etc/xen/ and also no xml. All It does is creating the s-expression file in /var/lib/. Is there a documentation about the relation between all this different XEN / libvirt configuration files? The architecture part of the documentation on libvirt.org does not answer this question. cheers On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 8:48 AM, Markus Armbruster <armbru@redhat.com> wrote:> Urs Golla <urs.golla@gmail.com> writes: > >> Hi, >> >> ok, but why does the file in /var/lib/xend/dom-uuid/config.sxp use >> such a strange syntax? I mean ''()'' instead of ''<>'' and an empty >> element should look like <name attribute="value"/> not (name value). > > Because it''s not XML. > >> if I dump the xml with virsh, it looks much more like a standard xml >> to me. > > Because it''s XML. > > The .sxp files use Xen''s native syntax, which is from the sexp > family[*]. libvirt uses XML. > > > [*] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-expression >
Urs Golla <urs.golla@gmail.com> writes:> Hi Markus > > Thanks for your reply! > >> Because it''s not XML. > > That really explains a lot ;-);)> I always assumed the "legacy" format from /etc/xen/mydomainconfig > (like in RHEL 5) is the native XEN syntax (I see this is not the > case.). So, the xml format from libvirt is like a replacement for the > configuration in /etc/xen/mydomainconfig? But if I use virt-install > (e.g. in Fedora 8) to install a new machine, it does not create a file > /etc/xen/ and also no xml. All It does is creating the s-expression > file in /var/lib/. > > Is there a documentation about the relation between all this different > XEN / libvirt configuration files? The architecture part of the > documentation on libvirt.org does not answer this question. > > cheersXen uses *two* native configuration file formats: S-expressions and a Python-like syntax. The .sxp files you found below /var/lib/xend/ use the former syntax, the guest configuration in /etc/xen the latter. I''d recommend to stick to libvirt as much as possible. Check "man virsh", in particular the domain commands "dumpxml" and "define".
On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 11:42:41AM +0100, Markus Armbruster wrote:> Urs Golla <urs.golla@gmail.com> writes: > > > Hi Markus > > > > Thanks for your reply! > > > >> Because it''s not XML. > > > > That really explains a lot ;-) > > ;) > > > I always assumed the "legacy" format from /etc/xen/mydomainconfig > > (like in RHEL 5) is the native XEN syntax (I see this is not the > > case.). So, the xml format from libvirt is like a replacement for the > > configuration in /etc/xen/mydomainconfig? But if I use virt-install > > (e.g. in Fedora 8) to install a new machine, it does not create a file > > /etc/xen/ and also no xml. All It does is creating the s-expression > > file in /var/lib/. > > > > Is there a documentation about the relation between all this different > > XEN / libvirt configuration files? The architecture part of the > > documentation on libvirt.org does not answer this question. > > > > cheers > > Xen uses *two* native configuration file formats: S-expressions and a > Python-like syntax. The .sxp files you found below /var/lib/xend/ use > the former syntax, the guest configuration in /etc/xen the latter.To be more specific ''xend'' use /var/lib/xend for storing master config files in SXPR format. ''xm'' abuses python as a config file format in /etc/xen. XenD itself has no knowledge of these files, so it can''t manage them. They should not be used in Xen >= 3.0.4 If you have existing files in /etc/xen, then you can load them into XenD by doing ''xm new configname'', at which point both Xend and libvirt will be able to manage them. For Xen < 3.0.4 libvirt has some limited support for reading /etc/xen files directly Daniel -- |: Red Hat, Engineering, London -o- http://people.redhat.com/berrange/ :| |: http://libvirt.org -o- http://virt-manager.org -o- http://ovirt.org :| |: http://autobuild.org -o- http://search.cpan.org/~danberr/ :| |: GnuPG: 7D3B9505 -o- F3C9 553F A1DA 4AC2 5648 23C1 B3DF F742 7D3B 9505 :|
Response below... -----Original Message----- From: fedora-xen-bounces@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-xen-bounces@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Daniel P. Berrange Sent: Monday, March 16, 2009 07:18 To: Markus Armbruster Cc: fedora-xen@redhat.com Subject: Re: [Fedora-xen] configuration files On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 11:42:41AM +0100, Markus Armbruster wrote:> Urs Golla <urs.golla@gmail.com> writes: > > > Hi Markus > > > > Thanks for your reply! > > > >> Because it''s not XML. > > > > That really explains a lot ;-) > > ;) > > > I always assumed the "legacy" format from /etc/xen/mydomainconfig > > (like in RHEL 5) is the native XEN syntax (I see this is not the > > case.). So, the xml format from libvirt is like a replacement for the > > configuration in /etc/xen/mydomainconfig? But if I use virt-install > > (e.g. in Fedora 8) to install a new machine, it does not create a file > > /etc/xen/ and also no xml. All It does is creating the s-expression > > file in /var/lib/. > > > > Is there a documentation about the relation between all this different > > XEN / libvirt configuration files? The architecture part of the > > documentation on libvirt.org does not answer this question. > > > > cheers > > Xen uses *two* native configuration file formats: S-expressions and a > Python-like syntax. The .sxp files you found below /var/lib/xend/ use > the former syntax, the guest configuration in /etc/xen the latter.To be more specific ''xend'' use /var/lib/xend for storing master config files in SXPR format. ''xm'' abuses python as a config file format in /etc/xen. XenD itself has no knowledge of these files, so it can''t manage them. They should not be used in Xen >= 3.0.4 If you have existing files in /etc/xen, then you can load them into XenD by doing ''xm new configname'', at which point both Xend and libvirt will be able to manage them. For Xen < 3.0.4 libvirt has some limited support for reading /etc/xen files directly Daniel -- I should hope this won''t be considered a thread hijacking, but when you refer to using Xen >= 3.0.4, are you also referring specifically to within Fedora (and perhaps RH & clones), or are you actually referring to that version of Xen regardless? Moreover, assuming you are referring specifically to Fedora, is there any compelling reason to do this beyond the fact that virt-install and Xen both support it and can then play nice? I ask because I still use /etc/xen and xm python-like config files, primarily because I can then quickly and easily edit those config files, but also because I use the functionality in /etc/xen/auto (and related config files) for startup and shutdown (which incidentally does appear somewhat broken specifically in F8 [EOL, I know, but it has appeared broken since some number of updates ago, and that might be the compelling reason]). Dustin