Re: [Qemu-devel] [RFC] Specification for qcow2 version 3

[Kevin Wolf]

Am 24.05.2011 12:41, schrieb Stefan Hajnoczi:
> 3. Zero clusters
> 
> Cluster descriptor bit 0 can mark clusters as zero.  This prevents
> access to the backing file and instead reads zeroes.
> 
> This is not really compatible with sub-clusters because it works at
> cluster granularity?

Right, that's something I wanted to discussed, too. In fact, it works
just fine with subclusters if you don't have a backing file, but you
can't have backing file references and zeros in the same cluster.

Should we use two bits for each subcluster? This would either reduce the
number of subclusters to 32, or we'd have to increase the size of L2
entries even further. A factor of 32 would mean 64k/2M which still
sounds reasonable, but it's not nice to have it as an absolute upper limit.

> Zero clusters enable efficient TRIM implementation even when a backing
> file is in use.

Actually, I think the main use case was maintaining sparseness over copy
on read.

> 
>> @@ -67,6 +67,42 @@ The first cluster of a qcow2 image contains the file 
>> header:
>>                     Offset into the image file at which the snapshot table
>>                     starts. Must be aligned to a cluster boundary.
>>
>> +If the version is 3 or higher, the header has the following additional 
>> fields.
>> +For version 2, the values are assumed to be zero, unless specified otherwise
>> +in the description of a field.
>> +
>> +         72 - 75:   incompatible_features
> 
> Is there a reason to use 32-bit instead of 64-bit?  I think virtio
> recently learnt that wider feature bitfields are useful :).

Not really, I'll change that.

> 
>> +                    Bitmask of incompatible features. An implementation must
>> +                    fail to open an image if an unknown bit is set.
>> +
>> +                    Bit 0:      The reference counts in the image file may 
>> be
>> +                                inaccurate. Implementations must 
>> check/rebuild
>> +                                them if they rely on them.
>> +
>> +                    Bit 1:      Enable subclusters. This affects the L2 
>> table
>> +                                format.
>> +
>> +                    Bits 2-31:  Reserved (set to 0)
>> +
>> +         76 - 79:   compatible_features
>> +                    Bitmask of compatible features. An implementation can
>> +                    safely ignore any unknown bits that are set.
>> +                    No compatible feature bits are defined yet.
> 
> Reserved, set to 0.
> 
>> +
>> +         80 - 83:   autoclear_features
>> +                    Bitmask of auto-clear features. An implementation may 
>> only
>> +                    write to an image with unknown auto-clear features if it
>> +                    clears the respective bits from this field first.
>> +                    No auto-clear feature bits are defined yet.
> 
> Reserved, set to 0.

Will change it.

> 
>> +
>> +         84 - 87:   refcount_bits
>> +                    Size of a reference count block entry in bits. For 
>> version 2
>> +                    images, the size is always 16 bits.
> 
> Version 2 does not have this field but always uses the default size of
> 16 bits?  I'm checking because earlier you wrote "For version 2, the
> values are assumed to be zero, unless specified otherwise in the
> description of a field".  But you don't expect v2 files to actually
> store the value 16 here, right?

Right. Would it be clearer as "For version 2 images, the size is always
assumed to be 16 bits"?

> Valid ranges for this field?

I think restricting it to powers of two makes sense. I'm not sure if we
should impose further restrictions. Allowing a value in the format
doesn't automatically mean that qemu must support it. I think initially
we'll only allow 16 bits.

>> +                    [ TODO: Define order in sub-byte sizes ]

Another thing to discuss would be if you think we'll want to have
sub-byte sizes other than 1?

>> +
>> +        [ TODO: Add per-L2-table dirty flag to L1? ]
>> +        [ TODO: Add per-refcount-block full flag to refcount table? ]

What do you think about these? Helpful or not? Add as an incompatible
feature flag later or consider it from the beginning?

>> +
>>  Directly after the image header, optional sections called header extensions 
>> can
>>  be stored. Each extension has a structure like the following:
>>
>> @@ -87,6 +123,8 @@ The remaining space between the end of the header 
>> extension area and the end of
>>  the first cluster can be used for other data. Usually, the backing file 
>> name is
>>  stored there.
>>
>> +[ TODO Feature name table? ]
> 
> There was discussion about using string names rather than feature
> bits.  This would make failure on unknown feature bits much clearer to
> end-users: unable to open test.qcow3, feature "new_feature" not
> supported
> 
> The issue with feature names as strings is that it makes header
> parsing more difficult - especially updating in place (delete or
> insert).  For this reason I don't see string names as essential.
> 
> Perhaps there was another requirement for feature names that I forgot about?

Yes, it was about error reporting. I wouldn't replace the feature bits,
but rather add a header extension (yes, they are still useful :-)) that
contains a table which maps feature flags to strings.

>> +
>>
>>  == Host cluster management ==
>>
>> @@ -138,7 +176,8 @@ guest clusters to host clusters. They are called L1 and 
>> L2 table.
>>
>>  The L1 table has a variable size (stored in the header) and may use multiple
>>  clusters, however it must be contiguous in the image file. L2 tables are
>> -exactly one cluster in size.
>> +exactly one cluster in size if subclusters are disabled, and two clusters if
>> +they are enabled.
>>
>>  Given a offset into the virtual disk, the offset into the image file can be
>>  obtained as follows:
>> @@ -168,9 +207,32 @@ L1 table entry:
>>                     refcount is exactly one. This information is only 
>> accurate
>>                     in the active L1 table.
>>
>> -L2 table entry (for normal clusters):
>> +L2 table entry:
>>
>> -    Bit  0 -  8:    Reserved (set to 0)
>> +    Bit  0 -  61:   Cluster descriptor
>> +
>> +              62:   0 for standard clusters
>> +                    1 for compressed clusters
>> +
>> +              63:   0 for a cluster that is unused or requires COW, 1 if its
>> +                    refcount is exactly one. This information is only 
>> accurate
>> +                    in L2 tables that are reachable from the the active L1
>> +                    table.
>> +
>> +        64 - 127:   If subclusters are enabled, this contains a bitmask that
>> +                    describes the allocation status of all 64 subclusters. 
>> The
>> +                    first subcluster is represented by the LSB. A 0 bit 
>> means
>> +                    that the subcluster is unallocated.
>> +
>> +Standard Cluster Descriptor:
>> +
>> +    Bit       0:    If set to 1, the cluster reads as all zeros instead of
>> +                    referring to the backing file if the (sub-)cluster is
>> +                    unallocated.
>> +
>> +                    With version 2, this is always 0.
>> +
>> +         1 -  8:    Reserved (set to 0)
>>
>>          9 - 55:    Bits 9-55 of host cluster offset. Must be aligned to a
>>                     cluster boundary. If the offset is 0, the cluster is
>> @@ -178,29 +240,17 @@ L2 table entry (for normal clusters):
>>
>>         56 - 61:    Reserved (set to 0)
>>
>> -             62:    0 (this cluster is not compressed)
>> -
>> -             63:    0 for a cluster that is unused or requires COW, 1 if its
>> -                    refcount is exactly one. This information is only 
>> accurate
>> -                    in L2 tables that are reachable from the the active L1
>> -                    table.
>>
>> -L2 table entry (for compressed clusters; x = 62 - (cluster_size - 8)):
>> +Compressed Clusters Descriptor (x = 62 - (cluster_size - 8)):
>>
>>     Bit  0 -  x:    Host cluster offset. This is usually _not_ aligned to a
>>                     cluster boundary!
>>
>>        x+1 - 61:    Compressed size of the images in sectors of 512 bytes
>>
>> -             62:    1 (this cluster is compressed using zlib)
>> -
>> -             63:    0 for a cluster that is unused or requires COW, 1 if its
>> -                    refcount is exactly one. This information is only 
>> accurate
>> -                    in L2 tables that are reachable from the the active L1
>> -                    table.
>> -
>> -If a cluster is unallocated, read requests shall read the data from the 
>> backing
>> -file. If there is no backing file or the backing file is smaller than the 
>> image,
>> +If a cluster or a subcluster is unallocated, read requests shall read the 
>> data
>> +from the backing file (except if bit 0 in the Standard Cluster Descriptor is
>> +set). If there is no backing file or the backing file is smaller than the 
>> image,
>>  they shall read zeros for all parts that are not covered by the backing 
>> file.
>>
>>
>> @@ -253,7 +303,13 @@ Snapshot table entry:
>>         36 - 39:    Size of extra data in the table entry (used for future
>>                     extensions of the format)
>>
>> -        variable:   Extra data for future extensions. Must be ignored.
>> +        variable:   Extra data for future extensions. Unknown fields must be
>> +                    ignored. Currently defined are (offset relative to 
>> snapshot
>> +                    table entry):
>> +
>> +                    Byte 40 - 47:   Size of the VM state in bytes. 0 if no 
>> VM
>> +                                    state is saved. If this field is 
>> present,
>> +                                    the 32-bit value in bytes 32-35 is 
>> ignored.
> 
> This is because you want a 64-bit VM state offset?

Right. Currently we can't snapshot VMs with >= 4 GB RAM. This is a
change that has been on my list for a long time, but it was never
important enough. It doesn't even require v3, but bow that we change the
format anyway, I though I'd include it.

> Need to add a note that this is v3-specific?
> 
> This field now preceeds the id_str and name variable length data?

It's not really v3-specific, it depends on extra_data_size. An
implementation that supports onĺy v2 could implement 64 bit VM state
size without any problems.

And yes, it would preceed id_str and name.

Kevin