Skip to content

Reading the manifest

Every non---dry-run invocation writes a structured JSON manifest to the path passed via --manifest (default /var/lib/nova-ve/import-manifest.json). The manifest has four top-level arrays:

Field Contents
imported one entry per file copied to the destination, with src / dst / sha256 / bytes / mode
templates one entry per emitted template, with name / status (one of ok, needs-manual-review) and on needs-manual-review a reason
skipped one entry per destination skipped because the bytes already matched (idempotency)
errors one entry per failure that did not abort the run; each has path and error

Handling needs-manual-review templates

When a vendor adapter cannot fully convert an EVE-NG template (e.g. the PHP file's qemu_options references an unrecognised -device tree, or an IOL template lacks its iourc license file), the importer flags the template with status: "needs-manual-review" and stores the parsed-but-unconverted EVE-NG fields under _eveng_raw for human inspection.

Workflow:

  1. List every flagged template: 
    jq '.templates[] | select(.status == "needs-manual-review")' \
  /var/lib/nova-ve/import-manifest.json
  2. For each: read the reason field, inspect _eveng_raw, and either:
    • hand-author a nova-ve template JSON under /var/lib/nova-ve/templates/<vendor>/<key>.json, or
    • open a follow-up issue if the importer should support that vendor pattern natively.
  3. Re-run the importer. The previously-flagged template stays flagged — the importer never overwrites a template you have customised; the check is content-aware sha256, not a marker comment.

Rollback

Because the default mode is non-destructive, rollback is straightforward:

# Reset the nova-ve image + template tree:
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/nova-ve/images /var/lib/nova-ve/templates
sudo install -d -o ubuntu -g ubuntu /var/lib/nova-ve/images /var/lib/nova-ve/templates

# Re-run the provisioner (idempotent) to re-create directory perms:
sudo bash deploy/scripts/provision-ubuntu-2604.sh

If you ran with --delete-source and want to restore from your EVE-NG host, re-rsync the source tree.

Tracking issues

  • #182 — umbrella tracker for the importer epic.
  • #184 — non-destructive copy contract.
  • #188 — paired-VM Juniper templates (vMX / vQFX).