[Users] Making v2v easier?

[Matthew Booth]

On 20/01/14 10:36, Itamar Heim wrote:
> On 01/20/2014 12:18 PM, Matthew Booth wrote:
>> On 20/01/14 09:53, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
>>> On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 05:06:13PM +0100, Sander Grendelman wrote:
>>>> On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 4:19 PM, Itamar Heim <iheim at redhat.com> wrote:
>>>>> I see a lot of threads about v2v pains (mostly from ESX?)
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm interested to see if we can make this simpler/easier.
>>>> hear hear!
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> if you have experience with this, please describe the steps you are
>>>>> using
>>>>> (also the source platform),
>>>>
>>>> Sources:
>>>> - Existing KVM (virt-manager/libvirt) platform
>>>> - ESX
>>>> - ova/ovf templates from several sources
>>>>
>>>> Methods:
>>>> - KVM:
>>>>    virt-v2v with libvirtxml option, works reasonably well, most issues
>>>> are with windows guests where virt-v2v needs libguestfs-winsupport and
>>>> virtio-win (RHEL only)
>>>> - ESX:
>>>>    virt-v2v which works reasonably well _if_ the right packages
>>>> (libguestfs-winsupport virtio-win) are installed.
>>>>    virt-v2v can be used directly from ESX/ESX host (configure .netrc
>>>> first) but this is quite slow
>>>>    another option is to export the VM as an OVA and then import it
>>>> with virt-v2v
>>>> - ova/ovf templates:
>>>>    hit and miss with virt-v2v, especially if they contain something
>>>> that is not a regular windows/linux guest.
>>>>    Another option is to do a direct copy of the disks on a pre-created
>>>> VM, clumsy.
>>>>
>>>>> and how you would like to see this make simpler
>>>>> (I'm assuming that would start from somewhere in the webadmin
>>>>> probably).
>>>>
>>>> Webadmin would be nice, but better behaviour from existing tools
>>>> would be
>>>> a nice start too.
>>>>
>>>> For example: the flow with virt-v2v is
>>>> 1) Analyze source, look for disks
>>>> 2) Convert/copy disks to ovirt export domain
>>>> 3) Try to add virtio stuff to the copied disks on the export domain
>>>>
>>>> If step 3 fails ( which happens a LOT), the copied disks are removed.
>>>> This is very frustrating if you just waited a couple of hours for a
>>>> large
>>>> VM (e.g. 200GB) to be copied :(
>>>>
>>>> Some kind of graceful abort/resume would be VERY welcome.
>>>
>>> The above basically come down to the fact that currently virt-v2v does
>>> the copy first and the v2v step second.  It was my understanding
>>> [Matt?] that guestconv is supposed to do the v2v step first followed
>>> by the copy, which should solve all of that.
>>
>> guestconv doesn't address this problem directly. We need smarter copying
>> for that :/
>>
>>>
>>>> Another issue with virt-v2v is that it _always_ tries to add virtio
>>>> drivers.  I have a virtual appliance that contains some kind of
>>>> proprietary embedded OS: adding drivers will always fail, give me
>>>> some option to override that and configure simple ide / e1000
>>>> hardware for the VM
>>
>> guestconv *does* address that.
>>
>>> I suspect in this case what you really should be doing is just copying
>>> the source disk image, without using virt-v2v at all.
>>
>> Matt
>>
> 
> is guestconv ready for adoption/testing instead of virt-v2v?

No, it's not even functionally complete, yet. We're planning to get that
sorted soon.

Matt
-- 
Matthew Booth, RHCA, RHCSS
Red Hat Engineering, Virtualisation Team

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