[fedora-virt] Fedora virt status September 2012

Tue Oct 2 01:05:54 UTC 2012

Hey all, here are some Fedora virt highlights for September.

  Fedora 18 Alpha release
  =======================

After 3 weeks of delay, the Fedora 18 Alpha was released on September 18:

http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/announce/2012-September/003103.html

Now's a great time to fire up a F18 VM and take a look at the new goodies.
But before you dive in for any serious usage, take a look at the release
notes and common bugs:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_18_Alpha_release_notes
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F18_bugs

Particularly note that a default anaconda install will wipe out an existing
disk with no explicit user warning, so be wary if installing on a disk
you care about!

Perfect reason to fire up a new VM for the install :)

  Fedora 18 Virt Test Day
  ======================

The Fedora Virt test day has been rescheduled to November 1st. This once
again puts us after the beta release, so we should have a solid base to
test against.

Check out the (in progress) virt test day landing page here:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2012-11-01_Virtualization

  Fedora 18 Schedule
  ==================

Just a reminder of the current F18 schedule, keep in mind the dates have
shifted due to the 3 week delay:

    F18 Alpha Release   :   Sep 18
    F18 Beta Deadline   :   Oct 09
    F18 Beta Release    :   Oct 23
    F18 Virt Test Day   :   Nov 01
    F18 Final Deadline  :   Nov 12
    F18 GA              :   Nov 27

  QEMU 1.2 Release
  ================

On September 5th, QEMU 1.2 was released (and pulled into Fedora the
next day by Hans). Some of the user facing highlights:

- qcow2: lazy refcount mode for improved writethrough performance
- qemu-img: check command can now repair qcow2/qed images
- migration: support for large memory guests
- migration: support for XBZRLE compression
- vnc: threaded server enabled by default
- openrisc emulation support
- block: default cache mode is now writeback
- achi: emulation of CD-ROM devices
- scsi: emulation of am53c974, dc390, and megasas controllers
- usb: emulation of scsi controller

A full changelog for the release is here:

http://wiki.qemu.org/ChangeLog/1.2

QEMU is aiming for 3 month release cycles these days, so that puts 1.3 out
in early December.

Several related bits were also updated in F18/rawhide: seabios 1.7.1,
openbios, and SLOF:

https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/seabios-1.7.1-1.fc18
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/openbios-1.0-6.svn1063.fc18
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/SLOF-0-0.1.git20120731.fc18

  Libvirt 0.10.2 Release
  ======================

libvirt 0.10.2 was released on September 24th. The changelog isn't too
interesting to end users, most of the notable additions where new
API calls that make lives easier for app developers. Some of
the more interesting bits:

- network: define new API virNetworkUpdate
- add support for QEmu sandbox support
- blockjob: add virDomainBlockCommit
- New APIs to get/set Node memory parameters
- parallels: add support of containers to the driver
- Add PMSUSPENDED life cycle event
- Add per-guest S3/S4 state configuration
- qemu: Support for Block Device IO Limits

The full changelog can be seen here:

http://libvirt.org/news.html

  Virt preview updates
  ====================

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Virtualization_Preview_Repository

There were a few delays in virt-preview this month. QEMU 1.2 caused a
bit of trouble for my scripts: requires a new usb-redir soname, which
bumped the spice-gtk soname, which caused a bit of fallout.

virt-preview is now generated with mock rather than scraping koji,
which allows us to be much more flexible in generating builds with
interdependencies (and had the nice side effect of making things simpler).

We are still handling gnome-shell a little funny, since the rawhide
version requires newish GTK bits, which aren't feasible to
include in virt-preview. So we are currently bumping the F17 version
number and doing a rebuild against rawhide spice-gtk.

As usual, if you hit an update or dependency issues, please mention
them on virt at list.fedoraproject.org

  Bug stats
  =========

Bug count on Sep 03 2012: 225
Bug count on Oct 01 2012: 228

There was a decent amount of bug churn, but in the end the numbers
didn't change much. The big packages like qemu and libvirt are hanging
tight around 60 bugs.

By release:
    * Fedora 16          : 66
    * Fedora 17          : 113
    * Fedora 18          : 18
    * Fedora rawhide     : 31

By package:
    * gnome-boxes        : 6
    * gtk-vnc            : 2
    * ipxe               : 2
    * libguestfs         : 5
    * libosinfo          : 7
    * libvirt            : 57
    * libvirt-cim        : 3
    * libvirt-glib       : 1
    * libvirt-qmf        : 1
    * libvirt-sandbox    : 3
    * netcf              : 7
    * python-virtinst    : 4
    * qemu               : 62
    * spice-gtk          : 5
    * usbredir           : 1
    * virt-dmesg         : 1
    * virt-manager       : 24
    * virt-v2v           : 2
    * virt-viewer        : 8
    * virt-what          : 2
    * xen                : 11
    * xorg-x11-drv-cirrus: 3
    * xorg-x11-drv-qxl   : 11

  Bugs of note
  ============

* Pointer is jumpy inside guests with F18:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=852841

This should be fixed in the latest F18 xorg-x11-server build, but an unupdated
F18 alpha install will still be susceptible. More info here:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F18_bugs#Cursor_frequently_jumps_to_the_edges_of_the_screen.2C_triggering_overview_in_GNOME.2C_especially_in_virtual_machines

* X server crashes when unlocking Gnome screensaver in a guest w/ QXL:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=856256

Should also be fixed with latest xorg-x11-server. More info here:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F18_bugs#GNOME_crashes_when_unlocking_screen_.28usually_in_a_KVM.29

Thanks,
Cole