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From: | Anthony Liguori |
Subject: | Re: [Qemu-devel] Re: RFC v2: blockdev_add & friends, brief rationale, QMP docs |
Date: | Wed, 16 Jun 2010 08:41:23 -0500 |
User-agent: | Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1.9) Gecko/20100423 Lightning/1.0b1 Thunderbird/3.0.4 |
On 06/16/2010 07:41 AM, Markus Armbruster wrote:
Kevin Wolf<address@hidden> writes:Am 15.06.2010 15:44, schrieb Avi Kivity:On 06/10/2010 08:45 PM, Markus Armbruster wrote:* Our config file format is in INI syntax. QemuOpts correspond to INI sections. Sections can't be nested, so recursive QemuOpts don't translate.git (and probably others) use [a "b"] c = d for a.b.c=dExamples: * Single protocol: -blockdev id=blk1,format=raw,protocol=[file,file=fedora.img] Requires suitable syntactic sugar to get the simple form (*). * blkdebug -blockdev id=blk2,format=qcow2,\ protocol=[blkdebug,config=test.blkdebug,\ protocol=[file,file=test.qcow2]] * Avi's mirror: -blockdev id=blk3,format=raw,\ protocol=[mirror,\ [file,file=local.img],\ [nbd,domain=unix,sockert=nbd-sock]] 2. We already have a syntax to specify trees, namely JSON, so use it If -blockdev's argument starts with '{', it's a JSON object suitable as argument of blockdev_add in QMP. We still provide ordinary QemuOpts syntax for the cases that can be expressed with it, i.e. single protocol. I figure we'd want syntactic sugar for blkdebug, to permit its use from the command line without having to resort to JSON.Might be nice as a general extension to QemuOpts.I agree.3. Stack protocols through named references The first protocol is "inlined" into -blockdev. Any further protocols need to be referenced by name. Best explained by example: * Single protocol: -blockdev id=blk1,format=raw,protocol=file,file=fedora.img To get the simple form (*), make protocol optional with a suitable default. * blkdebug -blockdev id=blk2,format=qcow2,protocol=blkdebug,config=test.blkdebug,\ base=blk2-base -blockproto id=blk2-base,protocol=file,file=test.qcow2 * Avi's mirror: -blockdev id=blk3,format=raw,protocol=mirror,\ base=blk3-base1,base=blk3=base2 -blockproto id=blk3-base1,protocol=file,file=local.img -blockproto id=blk3-base2,protocol=nbd,domain=unix,sockert=nbd-sock Anything but a single protocol becomes pretty verbose. Syntactic sugar for the blkdebug case would be possible; not sure it's worth it. No QemuOpts syntax changes. INI can handle this just fine.Looks like the least painful option as no new infrastructure is needed. I'd go with this.But it's painful to type for the user. After all -blockdev on the command line is for the user, as tools should use QMP. Also note that this syntax mixes format and protocol options on one line which I consider confusing at best. As I told Markus already in private before he posted this, I prefer the bracket solution for its clarity and simplicity, even though it comes at the cost of having additional characters that need to be escaped.I dont't think 1. is less painful than 3. Let's compare the two: * Single protocol: identical with suitable syntactical sugar, namely -blockdev id=blk1,file=fedora.img
First, let me say that -blockdev is not something that I believe is targeted at users. It's incredible unfair for us to expect a user to type:
-blockdev id=blk1,file=fedora.img -device ide-drive,drive=blk1,bus=0,unit=0 Instead of: -hda fedora.imgI had to look up the device syntax just to write that. There's no way users are going to do this. We should drop any notion of syntactical sugar IMHO. -blockdev is for management tools, scripts, and as an infrastructure for config files.
Unsugared it's -blockdev id=blk1,format=raw,protocol=[file,file=fedora.img] vs. -blockdev id=blk1,format=raw,protocol=file,file=fedora.img
Specifying nesting in a single option is a bad idea. It should be: -blockdev id=blk1,format=raw,protocol=blk2 \ -blockdev id=blk2,file=fedora.imgBut honestly, I'm thoroughly confused about the distinction between protocol and format. I had thought that protocols were a type of format and I'm not sure why we're making a distinction.
I sure prefer the latter. The brackets look like noise. You need to understand protocol stacking for them to make any sense. Regarding confusion caused by mixing format and protocol options: yes, the brackets force you to distinguish between protocol options and other options. But I doubt that'll reduce confusion here. Either you understand protocols. Then I doubt you need brackets to unconfuse you. Or you don't understand protocols. Then whether to put an option inside or outside the brackets is voodoo.
If the above is necessary just to create a raw image, then we're doing something wrong in the block layer. If should be possible to just say:
-blockdev id=blk1,format=raw,file=fedora.img Regards, Anthony Liguori
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