KVM Community Docs

[Bodhi Zazen]

Well I will add my 2c here as well ...

The problem IMO is that "KVM' is being used too broadly on the wiki pages.

KVM itself is a command line application and it has lots of very nice features, many of which are poorly documented on the Ubuntu wiki.

The second problem is that much of the "KVM" pages are not really KVM, they are front ends for KVM, namely virsh and virt-manager.

So, IMO, the wiki needs a major re-write and clarification is needed. Pages using "KVM" in the title need to be about KVM, with no front ends.

Then there needs to be pages devoted to the various front ends, virsh and virt-manager with detailed directions on how to build a guest, from start to finish.

The final problem is much of the information is variable across versions of Ubuntu. If you read some of the virsh pages they do not clearly state how virsh works and the differences on 8.04 vs 8.10 vs 9.04.

virt-manager is similar.

Add to the mix that networking is complicated, and virtual networks more so. Are you using NAT ? bridged ? Host only ? How are you going to manage iptables ?

If you wish to use bridged networking, virt-manager does not do this out of the box. You need to manually configure a bridge, then virt-manager will use it.

So it is indeed a bit of a mess =)


----- Original Message -----
From: "Jason Herr" <hobie at mail.com>
To: ubuntu-doc at lists.ubuntu.com
Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2009 8:15:25 PM GMT -07:00 US/Canada Mountain
Subject: KVM Community Docs

Hey,

I just dropped a quick fix to 
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/KVM/Networking, but I figured it would 
be worthwhile to add some feedback.  The KVM section seems to be making 
some assumptions that I did not actually understand.  I did not get a 
great deal of references to Virtual Machine Manager in this section. 
Also, I get the impression of the Networking page that the instructions 
are aimed at someone installing this on a Ubuntu Server installation. 
Since I don't really know the intent I'm leaving it alone.

In order to get KVM networking to work, I needed to disable 
NetworkManager, and get resolvconf working properly.  I did not see 
/usr/share/ubuntu-vm-builder/templates/libvirt.tmpl on my filesystem and 
  /etc/libvirt/qemu/ did not contain an interface section in the xml 
definition file.  (I'm on Jaunty Desktop).

I'm not sure if I'm just being a bull in a china shop, or if this needs 
attention.  So, here's hoping my email helps.

Thanks,
J


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