[Pkg-libvirt-maintainers] Bug#575126: virt-manager: Virt-manager (and related tools) are pretty much unusable due to numerious issues.

[nate]

Package: virt-manager
Version: 0.8.3-3
Severity: normal
Tags: sid

Unfortunately the latest version of virt-manager has become unusable for me due
to numerious issues regarding storage.  The usage of virt-manager introduces a
very significant loss of functionality and increase in difficulty and
frustration over just using qemu-kvm commandline by itself + a couple shell
scripts. The goal of the virt-manager seems to be to provide a
easier/friendlier/network-aware way of doing things, so this is pretty much a
huge problem for me.  The basic problems include (but are not limited to):  -
Cannot create a disk image then use it later in the creation of a new VM.
During the "Create a new virtual machine step 4 of 5" if I choose "Select
Managed or existing storage" and then select a image I created previously in
the virt-manager interface then I get a 'Storage Parameter Error: Name
'centos.img' already in use by other volume'.  Yes, of course the name is
already in use.. the name is already in use by the volume I am trying to
select.  - Cannot 'eject' a 'iso' image. During the installation of many
operating systems it is neccessary to use multiple ISO images. During the base
install of CentOS your required to have present no less then 4 ISO images and
at least 1of6 and 3of6 are going to be used. If I try to 'disconnect' a ISO
image through virt-manager then it tells me I must reboot the VM for the
changes to go into effect. Never before it was necessary to reboot a machine to
change a CDROM iso image.  - In the virsh shell there is no way I can tell the
VM to eject the CDROM or any other storage device. There exist commands to do
this, but as far as I can tell there is no way to list the devices currently
used by a 'domain'.    - The use of 'domain' is very confused in virsh. In some
virsh commands use the term 'domain' to refer to a host + VM solution URI...
like qemu:///system. However other commands use the term domain to refer to a
actual virtual machine instance. So it's confusing. Probably should refer to
'qemu:///system' type URIs as 'hosts' and VMs as domains.  - The virsh commands
also require you to use XML configuration files to reference storage volumes so
as far as I can tell there is no way you can use virsh to deal with ISO images
that 'browse' to that are not formally created in the virt-manager interface.
- It is currently impossible to formally create a ISO image in the virt-manager
interface. If you choose to create a 'iso' file in the "host details" "Add a
Storage Volume" dialog then the GUI silently fails. It gives no useful error or
any indication at all the program failed completely to create a ISO image file.
In the /var/log/system it indicates that libvirt attempted to use "kvm-img" to
create the ISO file, which will not work.   - I cannot find a reasonable way to
'import' a existing storage file (like a ISO file) into virt-manager. Not sure
if the problem is lack of documentation or lack of functionality. I can look up
the XML format and probably figure out how to manually create a XML file that
will reference a ISO image, but it's just not worth it.   - The 'browse for iso
image' used during creation of a new VM only works if your running virt-manager
on localhost.    And there are a few things like that. Another, more nitpick
thing, is the lack of VDE support. Virtual Distributed Ethernet is extremely
handy tool that can be use to create complex network topographies on a single
machine or even tunnel between multiple hosts. It can be used to create and
simulate typical networks and is very nice for training or network simulation
purposes.  'Bridges' are a alright substitution, but are much more difficult to
work with if your creating routers and stuff like that virtually.   So needless
to say I did not even have the ability to finish a CentOS installation. I am
probably being stupid and I could probably download the CentOS DVD images or
Live-CD or something like that.. but that would pretty much be a huge waste of
my time since I already have the full set of CentOS cdrom images and can just
go back to using kvm on the command line directly (+screen and +simple shell
script to handle the numerous options) and gain a large amount of usability and
features that way.   Hopefully these issues will get addressed or whatever so
that Virt-manager can someday be on par with other GUI tools that other VM
solutions enjoy.


-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-3-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages virt-manager depends on:
ii  librsvg2-common               2.26.0-1   SAX-based renderer library for SVG
ii  python                        2.5.4-9    An interactive high-level object-o
ii  python-dbus                   0.83.1-1   simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  python-glade2                 2.16.0-2   GTK+ bindings: Glade support
ii  python-gnome2                 2.28.0-2   Python bindings for the GNOME desk
ii  python-gtk-vnc                0.3.10-5   A VNC viewer widget for GTK+ (Pyth
ii  python-gtk2                   2.16.0-2   Python bindings for the GTK+ widge
ii  python-libvirt                0.7.7-3    libvirt Python bindings
ii  python-support                1.0.7      automated rebuilding support for P
ii  python-urlgrabber             3.1.0-5    A high-level cross-protocol url-gr
ii  python-vte                    1:0.22.5-3 Python bindings for the VTE widget
ii  virtinst                      0.500.2-2  Programs to create and clone virtu

Versions of packages virt-manager recommends:
ii  libvirt-bin                   0.7.7-4    the programs for the libvirt libra

Versions of packages virt-manager suggests:
ii  virt-viewer                   0.2.1-1    Displaying the graphical console o

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