Now that we have multiple domains (_pyrocufflink.blue_ for AD domain
members and _pyrocufflink.black_ for the new machines), we need a way to
specify the domain for new machines when they are created. Thus, the
`newvm.sh` script accepts either an FQDN or a `--domain` argument. The
DHCP server will register the DNS name in the zone containing the
machine's domain name.
When a VM uses a serial port for its default console, kernel messages
(e.g. panics) are lost if no console client is connected at the time.
This is a major disadvantage when compared to a graphical console, which
usually at least keeps a "screenshot" of the console when the kernel
crashes.
While researching the available console device types to determine how
best to implement a tool that would both log the output from the serial
console at all times, while still allowing interactive connections to
it, I discovered that _libvirt_ actually already has this exact
functionality built-in:
https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#consoles-serial-parallel-channel-devices
Although the `newvm.sh` script had a variable to configure the value
specified for the `--network` argument to `virt-install`, it didn't
expose a way to set it. We need this ability so we can e.g. create VMs
on non-default networks like `camera` or `mgmt`.
For the longest time, whenever I needed to create a new virtual machine,
I just used `Ctrl+R` to find the last `virt-install` command I had run
and tweaked it for the new machine. At some point, my `~/.zsh_history`
overflowed, though, so the command I had been running got lost. To
avoid this silliness in the future, I've created a script that runs
`virt-manager` for me. As a bonus, it has some configuration flags for
the parameters that often vary between machines. For most machines,
though, the script can be run as simply as `newvm.sh name`.
Dustin