External VMs automatically deleted when powered down
by andyg1001@hotmail.co.uk
Hi,
I have a pressing problem with oVirt, which is sadly languishing as a bug report (#1610917), so I thought I would also raise it here in case anyone else has experience of this and can suggest a workaround or, better yet, a solution to my problem :o)
Simply put, the problem is this. I have oVirt 4.2.7 installed on a Cent-OS 7.5 server. It is also necessary, due to various factors, to run what oVirt terms "external VMs" on this server, i.e. ones not managed by oVirt but managed separately, e.g. via virt-manager or virsh. The problem is that once these VMs are shut down (e.g. within the VM or by a command from virt-manager), they are automatically deleted by oVirt some 15 seconds later. The bug report noted above has more details, but these VMs are not created as temporary VMs, and when running the older oVirt 4.1.x or 3.8.x versions, this didn't happen. Looking through the oVirt and libvirt logs, it is really clear that oVirt is responsible for deleting these VMs, so I can rule out any other nefarious agent!
Does anyone know of a way of preventing oVirt from deleting external VMs, like a special config option or something? Or does anyone know how to mark a VM as "protected from deletion"? I know oVirt VMs have an option for "delete protection", but oVirt gives the error "Cannot edit VM. This VM is not managed by the engine." if you try to enable it on an external VM.
Many thanks,
Andy