From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1KNZib-0003sx-2j for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:53:21 -0400 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1KNZia-0003si-IA for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:53:20 -0400 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=38697 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1KNZia-0003sY-D2 for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:53:20 -0400 Received: from wr-out-0506.google.com ([64.233.184.231]:27686) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1KNZia-0001zI-7J for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:53:20 -0400 Received: by wr-out-0506.google.com with SMTP id c46so4180542wra.18 for ; Mon, 28 Jul 2008 13:53:19 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <488E319E.3010303@codemonkey.ws> Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:52:46 -0500 From: Anthony Liguori MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] qcow3 - arbitrary metadata References: <488E2752.7030008@codemonkey.ws> <200807282136.03400.paul@codesourcery.com> In-Reply-To: <200807282136.03400.paul@codesourcery.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Reply-To: qemu-devel@nongnu.org List-Id: qemu-devel.nongnu.org List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , To: qemu-devel@nongnu.org Cc: Nathaniel McCallum Paul Brook wrote: >> Ease of use primarily. Take the case of a VM appliance. I would build a >> VM appliance and in the metadata I would put: >> 1. My company's logo (which would show up as the icon on the file in any >> file browser) >> 2. All the correct config for how to make the VM implementation start this >> image >> 3. A first-run startup message with instructions >> 4. A click-through license agreement >> >> The user would download and double-click a single file and the VM would >> start up, ask me to agree to a license, provide me the instructions on how >> to begin and just start running. >> > > This is already broken because you're assuming a suitable version of qemu is > preinstalled on the user's machine. Once you have to install qemu, you can > just as easily install a frontend to provide whatever user interface you > want. > If you want to distribute an appliance as a single image and you want to be able to instantly use it, I think you need something like an offset= parameter for the -drive option. If you put everything in a tarball/zip file, you have to extract it first. You can make it a single-click operation, but you'll still have to wait for the disk to be extracted. I don't think it's a strong enough use-case to warrant a whole new disk format, but some trickery with the current format could suffice. Regards, Anthony Liguori > All modern filesystems have things called "directories" or "folders" than be > be used to group sets of related files. > > Paul > > >