[Pkg-libvirt-maintainers] Bug#664124: Bug#664124: libvirt: should not use type=ioemu for any emulated NIC

[Guido Günther]

Hi Stefan,
On Thu, Mar 15, 2012 at 07:08:47PM +0100, Stefan Bader wrote:
> Package: libvirt
> Version: 0.9.8-2
> Severity: normal
> Tags: patch
> User: ubuntu-devel at lists.ubuntu.com
> Usertags: origin-ubuntu precise ubuntu-patch
> 
> Dear Maintainer,
> 
> libvirt uses xend (xm stack) to manage Xen instances. Even when using
> any emulated NIC, there will always be a paravirt NIC in parallel if the
> pci-platform device is present. Newer guests will unplug the emulated
> NIC on boot. However there is a bug in the stack that will cause the
> paravirt NIC to have no MAC address when "type=ioemu" is used in the
> vif definition. On the other hand, even without this keyword, the
> emulated NIC will be provided.
> 
> Current libvirt already has a quirk to drop this when using no specific
> NIC model (defaulting to rtl8139). But the problem exists as well when
> using any other emulated NIC.
> 
> So currently, when booting a 3.0+ kernel after setting up the instance
> with the default NIC model, everything works. Changing the model to
> something like e1000, then the guest cannot use the paravirt interface
> after unplugging the emulated one. Ending up with no network.
> 
> *** /tmp/tmpay_5Gn/bug_body
> In Ubuntu, the attached patch was applied to achieve the following:
> 
> The parch replicates the quirk used to prevent the usage of "type=ioemu"
> to be used for the case of using a NIC model name explicitely.
> I think it should be useful/working for Debian as well. Sorry if this
> is not the ideal justification. Since this is the first time I use
> submittodebian, I am not sure how this exactly should be done.
> 
> 
>   [ Stefan Bader ]
>   * Never use type=ioemu for NIC definitions. It is not needed
>     and actually breaks the paravirt interface which always gets
>     created in parallel.

What's the upstream status of this issue? Please push this upstream
directly - this doesn't look like anything debian specific.
 -- Guido