openstack team mailing list archive

[Jay Pipes <jaypipes@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 5:33 PM, Ewan Mellor <Ewan.Mellor@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Is there a name for the .vmx + .vmdk combination (i.e. a normal VMware VM format)?  Maybe just "VMX" as an appliance format?

Sorry for the probably ignorant question here (I'm pretty ignorant to
a lot of the virtualization details :( ). From Googling, it seems that
the VMX file is merely a configuration file fed to vmware along with a
VMDK when creating a virtual machine.  Is this considered an appliance
format? Thanks in advance,

-jay

>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: John Purrier [mailto:john@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
>> Sent: 10 January 2011 08:59
>> To: 'Jay Pipes'
>> Cc: Ewan Mellor; openstack@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Subject: RE: [Openstack] Glance x-image-meta-type raw vs machine
>>
>> Jay, this makes a lot of sense. For disk formats I would suggest: VHD,
>> VDI, VMDK, RAW, & QCOW2. For the appliance formats: OVF, OVA, & AMI.
>>
>> Conversion within Glance will need to be able to handle both disk image
>> conversion and appliance format conversion.
>>
>> John
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Jay Pipes [mailto:jaypipes@xxxxxxxxx]
>> Sent: Monday, January 10, 2011 10:26 AM
>> To: John Purrier
>> Cc: Ewan Mellor; openstack@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Subject: Re: [Openstack] Glance x-image-meta-type raw vs machine
>>
>> And I think we need to come to an agreement on the terms used here...
>>
>> What is a "type" of virtual image? Do we mean a *disk* image format?
>> Do we mean a *metadata envelope* type (OVF, AMI, etc)? Do we mean some
>> "type" of system image or image part (kernel, ramdisk, etc)?
>>
>> What Glance is serving/registering is really called a *virtual
>> appliance*, as described in this article:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_appliance
>>
>> Proposal:
>>
>> Change the Image model to have these following fields, instead of the
>> existing "type" column:
>>
>> disk_format -- choice between ('VHD', 'VDI', 'VMDK')
>> appliance_file_format -- choice between ('AMI','OVF')
>>
>> Thoughts?
>> -jay
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 11:11 AM, John Purrier <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> wrote:
>> > My 2 cents... We need to define a transport-neutral specification
>> that allows us to encapsulate and copy/move a variety of virtual image
>> formats, this should be based on OVF. The envelope can contain both the
>> actual image as well as any required meta-data.
>> >
>> > The image elements specified are very AMI specific, we should
>> generalize to be able to indicate the type of virtual image (i.e. AMI,
>> VHD, etc.). A test for POC can be a service that takes the data in the
>> OVF or what is stored in Glance to convert between formats. If we do
>> this correctly all of the required data will be available at the
>> correct point in the flow.
>> >
>> > Don't know if this is directly applicable to the discussion point
>> below, but it is important that we get the fundamental
>> design/architecture concepts in place moving forward.
>> >
>> > John
>> >
>> > -----Original Message-----
>> > From: openstack-bounces+john=openstack.org@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> [mailto:openstack-bounces+john=openstack.org@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
>> Behalf Of Jay Pipes
>> > Sent: Monday, January 10, 2011 9:44 AM
>> > To: Ewan Mellor
>> > Cc: openstack@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> > Subject: Re: [Openstack] Glance x-image-meta-type raw vs machine
>> >
>> > On Sat, Jan 1, 2011 at 7:30 PM, Ewan Mellor
>> <Ewan.Mellor@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >> What is the intended semantics of the Glance x-image-meta-type
>> header values
>> >> “raw” vs “machine”?
>> >
>> > When we pulled the Image model from Nova into Glance, there was a
>> > field "image_type" that was limited to the strings "raw", "machine",
>> > "kernel", and "ramdisk".
>> >
>> > I'm open to changing this or using something like a "format" field
>> > (AMI vs OVF, etc..)
>> >
>> > Thoughts?
>> >
>> > -jay
>> >
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>
>