[Qemu-devel] [PATCH V12 1/6] docs: document for add-cow file format

[Dong Xu Wang <wdongxu@linux.vnet.ibm.com>]

Document for add-cow format, the usage and spec of add-cow are introduced.

Signed-off-by: Dong Xu Wang <wdongxu@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
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 docs/specs/add-cow.txt |  123 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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+== General ==
+
+The raw file format does not support backing files or copy on write feature.
+The add-cow image format makes it possible to use backing files with raw
+image by keeping a separate .add-cow metadata file. Once all sectors
+have been written into the raw image it is safe to discard the .add-cow
+and backing files, then we can use the raw image directly.
+
+An example usage of add-cow would look like::
+(ubuntu.img is a disk image which has been installed OS.)
+    1)  Create a raw image with the same size of ubuntu.img
+            qemu-img create -f raw test.raw 8G
+    2)  Create an add-cow image which will store dirty bitmap
+            qemu-img create -f add-cow test.add-cow \
+                -o backing_file=ubuntu.img,image_file=test.raw
+    3)  Run qemu with add-cow image
+            qemu -drive if=virtio,file=test.add-cow
+
+test.raw may be larger than ubuntu.img, in that case, the size of test.add-cow
+will be calculated from the size of test.raw.
+
+=Specification=
+
+The file format looks like this:
+
+ +---------------+-------------+-----------------+
+ |     Header    |   Reserved  |    COW bitmap   |
+ +---------------+-------------+-----------------+
+
+All numbers in add-cow are stored in Little Endian byte order.
+
+== Header ==
+
+The Header is included in the first bytes:
+(#define HEADER_SIZE (4096 * header_pages_size))
+    Byte    0 -  7:     magic
+                        add-cow magic string ("ADD_COW\xff").
+
+            8 -  11:    version
+                        Version number (only valid value is 1 now).
+
+            12 - 15:    backing file name offset
+                        Offset in the add-cow file at which the backing file
+                        name is stored (NB: The string is not nul-terminated).
+                        If backing file name does NOT exist, this field will be
+                        0. Must be between 80 and [HEADER_SIZE - 2](a file name
+                        must be at least 1 byte).
+
+            16 - 19:    backing file name size
+                        Length of the backing file name in bytes. It will be 0
+                        if the backing file name offset is 0. If backing file
+                        name offset is non-zero, then it must be non-zero. Must
+                        be less than [HEADER_SIZE - 80] to fit in the reserved
+                        part of the header.
+
+            20 - 23:    image file name offset
+                        Offset in the add-cow file at which the image file name
+                        is stored (NB: The string is not null terminated). It
+                        must be between 80 and [HEADER_SIZE - 2].
+
+            24 - 27:    image file name size
+                        Length of the image file name in bytes.
+                        Must be less than [HEADER_SIZE - 80] to fit in the reserved
+                        part of the header.
+
+            28 - 35:    features
+                        Currently only 1 feature bit is used:
+                        Feature bits:
+                            * ADD_COW_F_All_ALLOCATED   = 0x01.
+
+            36 - 43:    optional features
+                        Not used now. Reserved for future use. It must be set to 0.
+
+            44 - 47:    header pages size
+                        The header field is variable-sized. This field indicates
+                        how many pages(4k) will be used to store add-cow header.
+                        In add-cow v1, it is fixed to 1, so the header size will
+                        be 4k * 1 = 4096 bytes.
+
+            48 - 63:    backing file format
+                        format of backing file. It will be filled with 0 if
+                        backing file name offset is 0. If backing file name
+                        offset is non-zero, it must be non-zero. It is coded
+                        in free-form ASCII, and is not NUL-terminated.
+
+            64 - 79:    image file format
+                        format of image file. It must be non-zero. It is coded
+                        in free-form ASCII, and is not NUL-terminated.
+
+            80 - [HEADER_SIZE - 1]:
+                        It is used to make sure COW bitmap field starts at the
+                        HEADER_SIZE byte, backing file name and image file name
+                        will be stored here. The bytes that is not pointing to
+                        backing file and image file names will bet set to 0.
+
+== COW bitmap ==
+
+The "COW bitmap" field starts at offset HEADER_SIZE, stores a bitmap related to
+backing file and image file. The bitmap will track whether the sector in
+backing file is dirty or not.
+
+Each bit in the bitmap indicates one cluster's status. One cluster includes 128
+sectors, then each bit indicates 512 * 128 = 64k bytes. the size of bitmap is
+calculated according to virtual size of image file, and it also should be multipe
+of 65536, the bits not used will be set to 0. Within each byte, the least
+significant bit covers the first cluster. Bit orders in one byte look like:
+ +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
+ | b7 | b6 | b5 | b4 | b3 | b2 | b1 | b0 |
+ +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
+
+If the bit is 0, indicates the sector has not been allocated in image file, data
+should be loaded from backing file while reading; if the bit is 1, indicates the
+related sector has been dirty, should be loaded from image file while reading.
+Writing to a sector causes the corresponding bit to be set to 1.
+
+If raw image is not an even multiple of cluster bytes, bits that correspond to
+bytes beyond the raw file size in add-cow will be 0.
+
+Image file name and backing file name must NOT be the same, we prevent this
+while creating add-cow files.
+
+Image file and backing file are interpreted relative to the qcow2 file, not
+to the current working directory of the process that opened the qcow2 file.
-- 
1.7.1