Hi Keith, * Keith Mitchell (Keith.Mitchell at Sun.COM) wrote: > Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the initial solution suggestions > include the following: > > 1) VM Configured by manifest, user given basic set of options > 2) VM Configured by manifest, user given full set of options > 3) VM Configured externally, VM-image-constructor is pointed at > externally configured VM and installs onto it. > > Or is the 1st option going to be a VM completely configured with > defaults we define, with almost no configure options by the user?
You've got the list right. For the 1st option, we'll specify in the manifest a default set of options for a select few items required to construct a VM that we can install in to (size of disk, amount of ram, stuff like that). The user could modify those simple settings if they'd like or use them as is (and hope that whatever they chose to install can actually install inside them). > If I'm understanding the basic options correctly, option 2 is where > things get sketchy and difficult for the user when compared with option > 3. Assuming that a VM user already knows how to set up their own VM, is > there any reason to ask them to re-learn how to configure their VM > through our manifest? One of the problems previously discussed is that > the user could pick a "bad set" of options. Exactly. > These are all just thoughts that come from my attempts to understand the > desired product. It seems that, regardless of how it's done, at some > point the constructor will need a fresh empty VM instance to install > into. Given that, it would appear that it wouldn't be that hard to > provide a hook into the constructor. Basic users could have the VM > configured for them; advanced users could skip that step and provide a > VM that they set-up. It doesn't appear mutually exclusive to provide > both options, and assuming we want to provide the "user-friendly" method > regardless, adding the advanced option would be minimal additional work. I agree with all of this. I think implementing options 1 and 3 gets us a lot and option 3 covers the cases where option 2 would have been useful. Thanks for the feedback! -- Glenn
