Re: [Qemu-devel] Re: [kvm-devel] [PATCH][RFC] Allowing QEMU to directly execute a directory (and storing command line options in it)

[Andreas Färber]

Am 03.09.2007 um 13:40 schrieb Andreas Färber:

> Do all frontends actually serialize the whole command line? I  
> noticed the port redirection was in both command line and special  
> sections for Q but I thought some info wasn't in...

Answering myself here: Obviously the architecture is not part of the  
command line arguments. It would somehow need to be stored in the  
bundle as well.

Leading to this:

1) QEMU could get a -c switch that reads in only command line  
arguments for the current QEMU executable.
It was argued that this could be handled by shell scripts on Unices  
and Windows respectively, whereas a config file would work on both.

2) For really using a bundle with QEMU for multiple architectures  
we'd need a separate script or executable anyway to read in which  
qemu executable to launch.
So this can hardly be handled by QEMU command line arguments alone  
effectively.


So, independent of any config file switches, would there be any  
interest in such a simple "command line frontend"? I wouldn't  
personally need it but from my view this would come close to the use  
case of the VMware Player (on Windows) - people download the image  
and configuration and just run it.

I do like the idea of specifying a standard, extensible QEMU machine  
bundle format.

A first use case for QEMU itself would be the provided test images on  
qemu.org: If provided in a bundle then instead of downloading an  
archive and either running a custom script or, worse, looking up the  
configuration details in the custom script and needing to re-enter  
them in the frontend, such a bundle could be launched with the  
recommended configuration either through e.g. "qemu-run  
TestImage.qvm" or by opening the bundle with an appropriate platform- 
specific frontend.

Andreas