Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 13/13] blockdev: New -blockdev to define a host block device

[Christoph Hellwig]

On Wed, Jun 02, 2010 at 06:55:29PM +0200, Markus Armbruster wrote:
> Existing -drive defines both host and guest part.  To make it work
> with -device, we created if=none.  But all this does is peel off guest
> device selection.  The other guest properties such as geometry,
> removable vs. fixed media, and serial number are still in the wrong
> place.
> 
> Instead of overloading -drive even further, create a new, clean option
> to define a host block device.  -drive stays around unchanged for
> command line convenience and backwards compatibility.
> 
> This is just a first step.  Future work includes:

One thing we really needs is a protocol option.  The current colon
syntax means we can't support filenames with colons in them which
users keep requesting.  By making the protocol a separate option
we can sort this out.