[Pkg-libvirt-maintainers] Bug#805624: Bug#805624: libvirt-bin: document how to access host file system

[Ritesh Raj Sarraf]

On Thu, 2015-11-26 at 11:26 +0100, Guido Günther wrote:
> So in this case s.th. like:
> 
> * How can I mount a directory from the host in a QEMU VM.
> 
>   Use the 9pfs filesystem with a domain xml like:
> 
>     <filesystem type='mount' accessmode='passthrough'>
>       <source dir='/direcgory/on/host'/>
>       <target dir=share'/>
>     </filesystem>
> 
>   and to mount it within the guest use:
> 
>   cat <<EOF > /etc/fstab
>       share /mnt/share  9p  trans=virtio,rw,_netdev 0       0
>   EOF
>   mount /mnt/share
>      
>   See https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#elementsFilesystems for
>   details.
> 

This is pretty good.

> Or maybe we want to have more like a "How do I switch from VirtualBox
> to
> QEMU" section?
> 

I'd rather stick with documenting basic obvious things only. I think
the catch is on what constitutes "basic obvious things".


> What I'd like to understand is what motivated you to submit the
> patch.
> I'm pretty sure we need to improve on the docs, just trying to figure
> out _where_.

So, virt-manager, shows the option to add a share. There, in that
window, it gives no feedback on what needs to be done on the guest.

So the standard expectation would be that on next boot the guest would
have the storage accessible. FYI, that's how it is on VBox (Assuming
you have the VBox Guest Extensions Installed).

So with nothing being accessible in the Guest VM, my next step was to
look at the maintainer docs (README.Debian), if anything obvious is
documented.

Next, Google for "libvirt mount hostfs" led to a bunch of blog entries
that gave me the hint about 9p file system.

Assuming, that there may be users who may not have access to the
internet, this is not the most optimal option.



But that said, I do think too, that there needs to be a line ensuring
we don't clutter our usual README docs.




Looking again at this stack:

libvirt-bin package has no direct relationship with libvirt-doc.
Neither does virt-manager package.

virt-manager GUI app has a Help menu. But just with 1 button talking
"About" the tool.


Actually, you put the right question on what led me to write the patch.
So in my case, the usual practice has been to refer README.Debian. But
while writing this reply, it has made me wonder what a normal user
would do. Because there is no direct relationship established in-
between the tool and the documentation; even though both are available
in Debian.


-- 
Ritesh Raj Sarraf | http://people.debian.org/~rrs
Debian - The Universal Operating System
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