Re: [Qemu-devel] [RESEND PATCH v3 0/5] Add UUID support.

[Gleb Natapov]

Fabrice,

On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 09:07:13AM +0300, Gleb Natapov wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 12:04:50AM +0200, Fabrice Bellard wrote:
> > Gleb Natapov wrote:
> > > There was no additional comments last time I sent this patch series and
> > > it was not yet committed to the SVN. Resend it for review/inclusion.
> > > 
> > >  This is updated version of the patch series. The patch #5 checks libuuid
> > > availability and uses it for UUID generation if present, but it is
> > > optional so if people think that libvirt is a better place for UUID 
> > > generation
> > > just don't apply the last patch.
> > 
> > I don't like this vmport "backdoor" and I would like to disable it by
> > default, so I consider it is not the solution to pass the UUID
> > information to the BIOS.
> Do you have other interface in mind for host/guest communication?
> VMware uses the I/O port backdoor interface. Microsoft Virtual PC
> uses "Invalid Opcode" mechanism as a backdoor.
> We need this interface for other things too. For instance there are OEM
> Windows versions that require specific vendor's ACPI table to be present
> for installation. I have a patch that pass additional ACPI tables to BIOS
> using backdoor interface since it's not practical to compile different
> BIOSes for different Windows OEM versions.
> 
> > 
> > BTW, what is the use of this UUID ?
> > 
> It is used for system management to tell two identical computers apart.
> Something like MAC but more stable. In Windows WMI can be used to obtain
> UUID and we have vendors that use VB scripts to configure machines
> differently based on their UUIDs.
> 
Can you share your thoughts on this topic? As Anthony said in one of his
mails that this is a very common feature request for management tools.

Thanks,

--
                        Gleb.