[Qemu-devel] [PATCH 1/8] spec: add qcow2-dirty-bitmaps specification

[Vladimir Sementsov-Ogievskiy]

From: Vladimir Sementsov-Ogievskiy <address@hidden>

Persistent dirty bitmaps will be saved into qcow2 files. It may be used
as 'internal' bitmaps (for qcow2 drives) or as 'external' bitmaps for
other drives (there may be qcow2 file with zero disk size but with
several dirty bitmaps for other drives).

Signed-off-by: Vladimir Sementsov-Ogievskiy <address@hidden>
---
 docs/specs/qcow2.txt | 66 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 66 insertions(+)

diff --git a/docs/specs/qcow2.txt b/docs/specs/qcow2.txt
index 121dfc8..0fffba2 100644
--- a/docs/specs/qcow2.txt
+++ b/docs/specs/qcow2.txt
@@ -123,6 +123,7 @@ be stored. Each extension has a structure like the 
following:
                         0x00000000 - End of the header extension area
                         0xE2792ACA - Backing file format name
                         0x6803f857 - Feature name table
+                        0x23852875 - Dirty bitmaps
                         other      - Unknown header extension, can be safely
                                      ignored
 
@@ -166,6 +167,19 @@ the header extension data. Each entry look like this:
                     terminated if it has full length)
 
 
+== Dirty bitmaps ==
+
+Dirty bitmaps is an optional header extension. It provides a possibility of
+storing dirty bitmaps in qcow2 image. The fields are:
+
+          0 -  3:  nb_dirty_bitmaps
+                   Number of dirty bitmaps contained in the image
+
+          4 - 11:  dirty_bitmaps_offset
+                   Offset into the image file at which the dirty bitmaps table
+                   starts. Must be aligned to a cluster boundary.
+
+
 == Host cluster management ==
 
 qcow2 manages the allocation of host clusters by maintaining a reference count
@@ -360,3 +374,55 @@ Snapshot table entry:
 
         variable:   Padding to round up the snapshot table entry size to the
                     next multiple of 8.
+
+
+== Dirty bitmaps ==
+
+The feature supports storing several dirty bitmaps in the qcow2 file.
+
+=== Cluster mapping ===
+
+Dirty bitmaps are stored using a ONE-level structure for the mapping of
+bitmaps to host clusters. There is only an L1 table.
+
+The L1 table has a variable size (stored in the Bitmap table entry) and may
+use multiple clusters, however it must be contiguous in the image file.
+
+Given an offset into the bitmap, the offset into the image file can be
+obtained as follows:
+
+    offset = l1_table[offset / cluster_size] + (offset % cluster_size)
+
+L1 table entry:
+
+    Bit  0 -  61:   Standard cluster descriptor
+
+        62 -  63:   Reserved
+
+=== Bitmap table ===
+
+A directory of all bitmaps is stored in the bitmap table, a contiguous area in
+the image file, whose starting offset and length are given by the header fields
+dirty_bitmaps_offset and nb_dirty_bitmaps. The entries of the bitmap table have
+variable length, depending on the length of name and extra data.
+
+Bitmap table entry:
+
+    Byte 0 -  7:    Offset into the image file at which the L1 table for the
+                    bitmap starts. Must be aligned to a cluster boundary.
+
+         8 - 11:    Number of entries in the L1 table of the bitmap
+
+        12 - 15:    Bitmap granularity in bytes
+
+        16 - 23:    Bitmap size in sectors
+
+        24 - 25:    Size of the bitmap name
+
+        variable:   The name of the bitmap (not null terminated)
+
+        variable:   Padding to round up the bitmap table entry size to the
+                    next multiple of 8.
+
+The fields "size", "granularity" and "name" are corresponding with the fields
+in struct BdrvDirtyBitmap.
-- 
1.9.1