[Qemu-devel] [PATCH v4] block: Add support for Secure Shell (ssh) block device.

["Richard W.M. Jones" <rjones@redhat.com>]

This is version 4 of the Secure Shell (ssh) block device.

Links to earlier versions:

v1: http://www.mail-archive.com/qemu-devel@nongnu.org/msg162605.html
v2: http://www.mail-archive.com/qemu-devel@nongnu.org/msg162730.html
v3: http://www.mail-archive.com/qemu-devel@nongnu.org/msg162805.html

The version supports:

 - image creation, so eg. 'qemu-img create' can be used

 - extending the file, so qcow2 works

 - file.host, file.port, file.path, file.user properties (or ssh:// URLs)

 - asynch read/write using coroutines

 - ssh-agent authentication

 - checks the remote host key against known_hosts

This version is robust and works for me reliably.  Performance of
linear reading (eg. qemu-img convert ssh://...) is very fast indeed.
Random access performance is fairly poor (about the same as sshfs).
However it's usable remotely for booting and running guests, even over
relatively slow wifi links.

Rich.