Re: [Xen-API] Why is the vhd-util binary committed to the CloudStack source repo?

[Anthony Xu <Xuefei.Xu@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I'd like to post another feature request for vhd-util from CloudStack 
prospective.
It would be nice to have vhd-util copy function, 
1. it can thin provision VHD file after copy,
    For example, in CloudStack, user can install a VM from ISO, after 
installation , user
can use it as a template. It is better to have a small VHD size for template to 
save space.
after installation, there are some space zeroed or unused. User can dd to zero 
unused space, and use
vhd-util copy to create a small vhd file, vhd-util should detect zero block and 
remove it in target VHD file.
2. it can copy from VHD file chain,
    After do some snapshot on VHD file, it will create several VHD files, that 
comprise a VHD chain, vhd-util copy
should coalesce all parent VHDs.


Thanks,
Anthony



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike McClurg [mailto:mike.mcclurg@xxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2012 1:03 AM
> To: cloudstack-dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; xen-api@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: RE: Why is the vhd-util binary committed to the CloudStack
> source repo?
> 
> CC'ing xen-api list.
> 
> On May 30, 2012 6:31 PM, "Anthony Xu" <Xuefei.Xu@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > All XenServer releases include vhd-util, in that version it saves
> local
> time as timestamp in VHD file, it is probably okay with XenServer.
> > But with CloudStack, CloudStack may move VHD file around to XenServer
> with different time zone, XenServer may think the VHD file is broken
> because
> > the timestamp in the VHD file is behind its local time.
> >
> > We put the vhd-util source in tools/vhd-tools/, which is originally
> coming from xen 4.1 source code. We removed the check of timestamp to
> workaround above issue.
> >
> > The reason we need vhd-util binary is,
> > Vhd-util is supposed to run on XenServer host, which is a 32 bit OS.
> But
> most developer machines are 64 bit OS.
> >
> >
> 
> This isn't something that needs to be fixed, I suppose, but it might be
> a
> good idea to patch vhd-util to either ignore timestamps, as you've done,
> or
> to use utc instead. We could then put this version of vhd-util in
> XenServer, and work on upstreaming it to Xen.
> 
> Any thoughts on this from xen-api?
> 
> Mike
> 
> > What's your opinion on how to handle this?
> >
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Anthony
> >
> >
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Mike McClurg [mailto:mike.mcclurg@xxxxxxxxx]
> > > Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2012 1:22 AM
> > > To: cloudstack-dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > > Subject: Why is the vhd-util binary committed to the CloudStack
> source
> > > repo?
> > >
> > > Hi all,
> > >
> > > I was looking in scripts/vm/hypervisor/xenserver/ when I noticed
> that
> > > the vhd-util file is actually a compiled binary. So, my questions
> are:
> > >
> > > 1) If this program is necessary, then is there a better way to
> include
> > > it in the source tree? Either as a dependency, or as source
> directly?
> > > 2) Is this really necessary in XenServer 6.0 and onwards? I don't
> have
> > > a previous release handy for testing, but I know that we included
> > > vhd-util in XenServer since 6.0.
> > > 3) Is there anything special about the particular version of vhd-
> util
> > > you've packaged in the git repo? Or will any recent version do?
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > >
> > > Mike

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