[Engine-devel] [vdsm] Multiple graphics framebuffers - VDSM support

[Frantisek Kobzik]

Hi guys,

I created a wiki page with the feature: http://www.ovirt.org/Features/Multiple_Consoles

It contains information about possible redesign of Engine<->VDSM communication.
I'd appreciate if you take a look at it since it's not trivial change. 

I welcome opinions from both engine and vdsm devels.

Cheers,
F.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Frantisek Kobzik" <fkobzik at redhat.com>
To: vdsm-devel at lists.fedorahosted.org
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2013 2:23:59 PM
Subject: Re: [vdsm] Multiple graphics framebuffers - VDSM support

Hi,

it's been some time since the original mail, so I'm sending updated information.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Frantisek Kobzik" <fkobzik at redhat.com>
To: vdsm-devel at lists.fedorahosted.org
Sent: Thursday, November 7, 2013 11:47:46 AM
Subject: [vdsm] Multiple graphics framebuffers - VDSM support

Dear VDSM developers,

I'm working on a patch that allows running a VM with multiple graphics framebuffers. This is handy when you want to run a VM with both SPICE and VNC. It's a 3.4 feature and it will certainly need a change in vdsm.
Here is a list of changes in VDSM that are needed for this funcionality:
a, Sending graphics/video (engine->vdsm)
 - currently we send two things:
  1, "display" value (qxl/vnc [wat])
    - vdsm uses this for determining if the graphics server is SPICE or VNC
    - this attribute is not really correct - it mixes up semantics of graphic
      framebuffer and videocard together. I believe this attribute should only
      contain information about the graphics ('spice', 'vnc' or 'spice,vnc' if
      you want both). if this the case, do you think we should rename the attribute
      to, let's say, 'graphics'? Is it even possible with regard to backward 
      compatibility? or should I reuse 'display' attribute?
  2, video device (json representation of the video card) - this is correct

b, Reporting graphics ports (vdsm->engine)
 - currently we report 2 graphic ports ('displayPort' and 'secureDisplayPort')
 - if we want multiple framebuffers, we must report more ports (for VNC and 
   SPICE together that would mean 3 ports (2 for spice, one for vnc).
 - there are two possible solutions for this:
  1, ditch 'displayPort' and 'secureDisplayPort' and add new 'spicePort',
     'spiceSecurePort', 'vncPort' fields or some kind of two level dict:
        { protocol -> secured/unsecured -> portNumber }
  2, keep 'displayPort' and 'secureDisplayPort' and introduce new 'additionalDisplayPort'
     This would be friendlier to backward compatibility, but it's extremely
     ugly because of unclear semantics of the fields (in case of SPICE+VNC
     'displayPort' and 'secureDisplayPort' would be related to SPICE, 
    'additionalDisplayPort' would be the VNC port. In case of VNC only, the 
    'displayPort' would be suddendly VNC port... ewww).

I'd be very happy if you share your opinion about these changes.

Cheers,
Franta.
_______________________________________________
vdsm-devel mailing list
vdsm-devel at lists.fedorahosted.org
https://lists.fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/vdsm-devel