libguestfs is a set of tools for reading and modifying disk images and virtual machines. virt-v2v and virt-p2v are tools for converting guests from foreign hypervisors (especially VMware, Xen), or physical machines, to run on KVM (eg. virt-manager, OpenStack/RHOS or oVirt/RHEV).

This is just a heads-up about some changes to the way libguestfs and related packages will be packaged in RHEL 7.2.

Previously (<= 7.1): – libguestfs required qemu-kvm-rhev (qemu-kvm-ev in CentOS).

– libguestfs-winsupport was in a separate RHEL channel.

– libguestfs-winsupport had file conflicts with ntfs-3g.

– virt-v2v was not shipped in RHEL 7.1.

– There were missing BuildRequires.

Starting with RHEL 7.2:

– libguestfs requires qemu-kvm. (You can still use qemu-kvm-ev if
you want).

– There is an upgraded qemu-kvm package that contains the extra
features from qemu-kvm-ev that libguestfs needed.

– libguestfs-winsupport will be shipped in the base RHEL Server channel,
as an ordinary package.

– libguestfs-winsupport won’t conflict with any EPEL packages.

– virt-v2v is built as a binary sub-package of libguestfs, and shipped
in the base RHEL Server channel.

– There should be no missing BuildRequires this time.

Hopefully this is a simplification, and will make everyone’s job easier. If there’s any fall-out from these changes that affects CentOS, please let me know – best to CC me on any emails.

– – –

Now for something that is — unfortunately — still complicated:

virt-p2v is a CD/ISO that we build to allow conversions of physical machines to KVM. You have to boot the physical machine with the CD. For this reason the virt-p2v ISO that we give to RHEL customers contains a bootable RHEL distro.

In RHEL we build this using an (IMHO over-complicated) method starting with a kickstart, building an ISO, and then wrapping the ISO in an RPM. If CentOS has a way to ship ISOs, then it’s likely better for CentOS just to build the ISO and stop there. To get the kickstart, run:

$ virt-p2v-make-kickstart -o p2v.ks http://CentOS.org/path/to/7.2/repo

Further instructions here:

http://libguestfs.org/virt-p2v-make-kickstart.1.html

Rich.