[ale] ovirt is rapidly losing it's charm

[DJ-Pfulio]

Virtio-win stuff is a dual edged sword.

It is slightly less overhead and slightly better performance, but if you
move the storage over to using it, then you have to remember when
troubleshooting to load those drivers when you are having trouble
booting.  Usually takes me about 20 minutes to remember that about once
a year when Windows refuses to boot due to some sort of corruption.

Just a thought. OTOH, you can setup virtio-scsi devices and use standard
SCSI drivers in Windows which remove some of the limitations that virtio
drivers bring, while keeping the (theoretically) lower overhead and
faster I/O. I can't remember if libvirt supports a menu for picking
virtio-scsi, but in the libvirt XML file, the bus=scsi and
model=virtio-scsi will cause the vda --> sda device names.  ;)  I
understand virtio storage has some limit for the number of devices it
can support, whereas the SCSI limits are effectively unlimited.

I've been testing virt-scsi on a Linux VM about 2 months. No issues.
Feels about time to switch my Windows VM over to it during the next
maintenance period.

On 05/04/2018 03:07 PM, Derek Atkins via Ale wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I just got back and was able to check.  There is a
> virtio-win-0.1.141-1.noarch package that I have installed on my ovirt
> host.  This is what provides the virtio drivers for Windows.  You do need
> to specifically load them during the installation and also just after
> installation as well (otherwise the VM could get locked up).
> 
> Hope this helps!
> 
> -derek
> 
> On Fri, May 4, 2018 1:22 pm, James Taylor wrote:
>> For one thing, there are references all over the place for the
>> virtio-win.vfd that is needed for a windows install.
>> I have looked all over hell for it, and can't find a copy available
>> anywhere.
>> Nor is it on the hosted ovirt engine I'm running.
>> -jt
>>
>>
>> James Taylor
>> 678-697-9420
>> james.taylor at eastcobbgroup.com
>>
>>
>>
>>>>> "Derek Atkins" <derek at ihtfp.com> 5/4/2018 12:30 PM >>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I started with 4.0 and am now running 4.1 (haven't upgraded to 4.2, yet).
>>
>> What, specifically, is missing or are you trying to do?
>>
>> For the record, I have a bunch of different platform VMs including CentOS,
>> Fedora, and Windows.  But generally I just let the thing run and don't
>> touch it.
>>
>> -derek
>>
>> On Fri, May 4, 2018 12:16 pm, James Taylor via Ale wrote:
>>> I finally got an ovirt cluster installed, and even have a few VMs
>>> running
>>> on it, but the entire management interface was changed in the 4.x
>>> releases, and every time I try to find documentation, everything refers
>>> to
>>> the previous interfaces, and it doesn't apply.
>>> I've wasted a ridiculous amount of time on this, and I think I'm going
>>> to
>>> punt it and start over with another solution, as soon as find something
>>> more manageable.
>>> I suppose if you wanted ti use it to run a bunch of Red Hat VMs, it's
>>> great, but I have a lot of different platforms to support, and it's just
>>> too much of a pain to get going with it.
>>> -jt
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> James Taylor
>>> 678-697-9420
>>> james.taylor at eastcobbgroup.com
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> Ale at ale.org
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>>> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
>>> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>        Derek Atkins                 617-623-3745
>>        derek at ihtfp.com             www.ihtfp.com
>>        Computer and Internet Security Consultant
>>
>>
>>
>>
> 
> 


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