Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 2/2] qapi: Allow blockdev-add for NBD

[Eric Blake <eblake@redhat.com>]

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On 02/03/2016 09:33 AM, Max Reitz wrote:
> We have to introduce a new object (BlockdevOptionsNbd) for several
> reasons:
> - Neither of InetSocketAddress nor UnixSocketAddress alone is
>   sufficient, because both are supported
> - We cannot use SocketAddress because NBD does not support an fd,
>   and because it is not a flat union which BlockdevOptionsNbd is

Can we do it anyways, and just error out/document that fd is unsupported?

> - We cannot use a flat union of InetSocketAddress and
>   UnixSocketAddress because we would need some kind of discriminator
>   which we do not have; we could inline the UnixSocketAddress as a
>   string and then make it an 'alternate' type instead of a union, but
>   this will not work either, because:
> - InetSocketAddress itself is not suitable for NBD because the port is
>   not optional (which it is for NBD) and because it offers more options
>   (like choosing between ipv4 and ipv6) which NBD does not support.

That, and qapi doesn't (yet) support the use of a flat union as the
branch of yet another flat union.

I'd like to reach the point where we can have a flat union with an
implicit discriminator (if the discriminator was not present, the
require a default branch), but don't think it should hold up this patch.
I also think that future qapi improvements may make it possible to
retrofit this struct to make the mutual exclusion between host/file more
obvious during introspection, rather than just by documentation.

> 
> Signed-off-by: Max Reitz <mreitz@redhat.com>
> ---
>  qapi/block-core.json | 28 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++--
>  1 file changed, 26 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> 

>  ##
> +# @BlockdevOptionsNbd
> +#
> +# Driver specific block device options for NBD. Either of @host or @path must be
> +# specified, but not both.
> +#
> +# @host:    #optional Connects to the given host using TCP.
> +#
> +# @port:    #optional Specifies the TCP port to connect to; may be used only in
> +#           conjunction with @host. Defaults to 10809.
> +#
> +# @path:    #optional Connects to the given Unix socket path.
> +#
> +# @export:  #optional Name of the NBD export to open.

Maybe mention that the default is no export name.

> +#
> +# Since: 2.6
> +##
> +{ 'struct': 'BlockdevOptionsNbd',
> +  'data': { '*host':    'str',
> +            '*port':    'str',
> +            '*path':    'str',
> +            '*export':  'str' } }

I'm not entirely convinced this is the final representation we want, but
I can't immediately propose anything nicer.

-- 
Eric Blake   eblake redhat com    +1-919-301-3266
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org


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