Re: [Qemu-devel] [SeaBIOS] [PATCH] don't expose pvpanic device in the UI

[Andreas Färber]

Am 06.08.2013 14:00, schrieb Gleb Natapov:
> On Tue, Aug 06, 2013 at 01:23:49PM +0200, Andreas Färber wrote:
>> Am 06.08.2013 13:00, schrieb Gleb Natapov:
>>> On Tue, Aug 06, 2013 at 12:35:10PM +0200, Andreas Färber wrote:
>>>> I wonder if IPMI might be such an alternative in the future, in which
>>>> case we should come up with some way to fully disable pvpanic device
>>>> creation. CC'ing Corey.
>>>>
>>> IPMI was considered, to complicated for what was needed.
>>
>> Sorry? There's nothing wrong with going for pvpanic as a simple
>> implementation.
>>
> Sure, why "sorry" then? :)

Because I don't understand what IPMI being too complicated has to do
with me saying that because, for example, a future IPMI emulation may be
able to fulfill the same function, we may want to disable pvpanic at
that point. :)

[...]
>> My point was, there may be alternative, non-PV implementations to suck
>> such information out of a guest, IPMI being one example of a management
>> interface that exists for physical servers. So it's not necessarily
>> black-or-white, but choices similar to virtio vs. IDE vs. AHCI vs. SCSI.
>>
> pvpanic not meant to replace IPMI though.

That's a matter of definition: Is vmmouse meant to replace USB tablets?
They have similar functions for the user but are implemented in a way
they can coexist in software.

It is handy to have vmmouse enabled if my guest X11 and VNC have support
for vmmouse or ignore it, but if my guest has broken vmmouse drivers
then it may well be handy to be able to turn off vmmouse emulation in
QEMU rather than insisting that all PV interfaces always stay enabled.
Question is how to do that best, beyond the pvpanic-specific ioport=0.

Andreas

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