From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1LBvSa-0005ln-5z for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Sun, 14 Dec 2008 13:12:56 -0500 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1LBvSY-0005l5-Oe for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Sun, 14 Dec 2008 13:12:55 -0500 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=53226 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1LBvSY-0005ky-DL for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Sun, 14 Dec 2008 13:12:54 -0500 Received: from mail2.shareable.org ([80.68.89.115]:60947) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1LBvSY-0001EQ-2A for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Sun, 14 Dec 2008 13:12:54 -0500 Received: from jamie by mail2.shareable.org with local (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1LBvSW-0007sa-Ut for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Sun, 14 Dec 2008 18:12:52 +0000 Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2008 18:12:52 +0000 From: Jamie Lokier Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] Re: snapshot vs COW? Message-ID: <20081214181252.GE28984@shareable.org> References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: 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 walt wrote: > Jun Koi wrote: > >Hi, > > > > From what I see, both snapshot and COW features can be used to try > >some changes on the file image before we the change back to the > >original image. > > > >But what is the advantages of snapshot over COW, and in which case we > >should use snapshot, but not COW? Vice verse, when COW is more > >appropriate? > > > >Many thanks, > >Jun > > COW is a nice feature but it is currently broken, so don't use it > until it gets fixed. When you commit any changes your backing file > will be corrupted. Aieee! I use COW instead of snapshots in my management scripts, because snapshots are harder to manage. Is the COW brokenness documented? What version did it start being broken? -- Jamie