From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:37390) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VBayI-0004IQ-Fe for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Mon, 19 Aug 2013 21:43:04 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VBayC-00021q-DY for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Mon, 19 Aug 2013 21:42:58 -0400 Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([209.132.183.28]:18206) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VBayC-00021H-5l for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Mon, 19 Aug 2013 21:42:52 -0400 Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2013 09:42:43 +0800 From: Fam Zheng Message-ID: <20130820014243.GA7602@localhost.localdomain> References: <4A946BEF1E0D5A89DFF0499F@Ximines.local> <20130819112335.GA27849@localhost.localdomain> <1960DADA-9E1D-48EF-9AE4-2805F0787E70@alex.org.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <1960DADA-9E1D-48EF-9AE4-2805F0787E70@alex.org.uk> Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] vmdk stream-optimised format Reply-To: famz@redhat.com List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , To: Alex Bligh Cc: qemu-devel@nongnu.org On Mon, 08/19 12:50, Alex Bligh wrote: > > On 19 Aug 2013, at 12:23, Fam Zheng wrote: > > > Yes, that would be something possible to do. Is it the only format to > > upload a VM to vCenter now, shouldn't normal VMDK be supported as well? > > Ian puts it better than I can: > > > This format is only useful if you are attempting to import virtual machines > > into ESX using the vSphere SOAP API and HTTP POST uploads of image files. > > (In which case, it is required.) > > IE it is the ONLY format you can use using the vSphere SOAP API, which is > the only way to automate image uploading. vCenter converts other formats > to this format. > > Extensive testing with qemu in Q1 this year indicates that it is not > possible to use qemu-img convert to produce anything that will upload. > I went as far as hexdump at the time. I believe I tried compat6 > and the various subformat options. > > I believe we /read/ this format fine. > OK, thanks for explaination. That sounds a valid use case for streamOptimized. However I am afraid QEMU and its users benefit not much from this feature anyway, because it's moving a VM away to VMware, :) that might be the reason it's not there yet, and I don't know about any plan to do it in the near future. But if someone sends patches for this, I think it is possible to get in. Thanks, Fam