qemu/ui
Stefan Hajnoczi 550830f935 block: delete cow block driver
This patch removes support for the cow file format.

Normally we do not break backwards compatibility but in this case there
is no impact and it is the most logical option.  Extraordinary claims
require extraordinary evidence so I will show why removing the cow block
driver is the right thing to do.

The cow file format is the disk image format for Usermode Linux, a way
of running a Linux system in userspace.  The performance of UML was
never great and it was hacky, but it enjoyed some popularity before
hardware virtualization support became mainstream.

QEMU's block/cow.c is supposed to read this image file format.
Unfortunately the file format was underspecified:

1. Earlier Linux versions used the MAXPATHLEN constant for the backing
   filename field.  The value of MAXPATHLEN can change, so Linux
   switched to a 4096 literal but QEMU has a 1024 literal.

2. Padding was not used on the header struct (both in the Linux kernel
   and in QEMU) so the struct layout varied across architectures.  In
   particular, i386 and x86_64 were different due to int64_t alignment
   differences.  Linux now uses __attribute__((packed)), QEMU does not.

Therefore:

1. QEMU cow images do not conform to the Linux cow image file format.

2. cow images cannot be shared between different host architectures.

This means QEMU cow images are useless and QEMU has not had bug reports
from users actually hitting these issues.

Let's get rid of this thing, it serves no purpose and no one will be
affected.

Signed-off-by: Stefan Hajnoczi <stefanha@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: Markus Armbruster <armbru@redhat.com>
Message-id: 1410877464-20481-1-git-send-email-stefanha@redhat.com
Signed-off-by: Stefan Hajnoczi <stefanha@redhat.com>
2014-09-22 11:39:45 +01:00
..
Makefile.objs input: key mapping helpers 2014-05-16 08:30:11 +02:00
cocoa.m block: delete cow block driver 2014-09-22 11:39:45 +01:00
console.c qemu-char: Rename register_char_driver_qapi() to register_char_driver() 2014-09-16 23:36:32 +01:00
curses.c input/curses: add kbd delay between keydown and keyup events 2014-06-04 08:40:42 +02:00
curses_keys.h janitor: add guards to headers 2012-12-19 08:31:31 +01:00
cursor.c ui: move files to ui/ and include/ui/ 2012-12-19 08:31:30 +01:00
cursor_hidden.xpm ui: move files to ui/ and include/ui/ 2012-12-19 08:31:30 +01:00
cursor_left_ptr.xpm ui: move files to ui/ and include/ui/ 2012-12-19 08:31:30 +01:00
d3des.c
d3des.h janitor: add guards to headers 2012-12-19 08:31:31 +01:00
gtk.c ui/gtk: Restore keyboard focus after Page change 2014-07-11 10:44:00 +02:00
input-keymap.c input: keymap: add meta keys 2014-05-26 08:42:43 +02:00
input-legacy.c input: use kbd delays for send_key monitor command 2014-06-04 08:40:41 +02:00
input.c input: add support for kbd delays 2014-06-04 08:40:41 +02:00
keymaps.c qemu-char: add support for U-prefixed symbols 2013-11-13 15:48:38 +04:00
keymaps.h
qemu-pixman.c console: add qemu_pixman_linebuf_copy 2014-09-05 13:27:11 +02:00
qemu-x509.h ui: move files to ui/ and include/ui/ 2012-12-19 08:31:30 +01:00
sdl.c console: stop using PixelFormat 2014-09-05 13:27:11 +02:00
sdl2-keymap.h sdl2: keymap fixups 2014-09-16 08:07:05 +02:00
sdl2.c sdl2: drop sdl_zoom.h 2014-09-16 08:07:05 +02:00
sdl_keysym.h ui/sdl2 : initial port to SDL 2.0 (v2.0) 2014-03-05 09:52:05 +01:00
sdl_zoom.c sdl: Fix heap smash in sdl_zoom_rgb{16,32} for int > 32 bits 2013-01-15 18:25:30 -06:00
sdl_zoom.h
sdl_zoom_template.h sdl: Fix heap smash in sdl_zoom_rgb{16,32} for int > 32 bits 2013-01-15 18:25:30 -06:00
spice-core.c spice: call qemu_spice_set_passwd() during init 2014-09-16 08:09:03 +02:00
spice-display.c spice: make sure we don't overflow ssd->buf 2014-09-05 12:19:50 +02:00
spice-input.c spice: input: Fix absolute mouse y coordinates 2014-03-24 08:41:21 +01:00
vgafont.h ui: move files to ui/ and include/ui/ 2012-12-19 08:31:30 +01:00
vnc-auth-sasl.c Merge branch 'trivial-patches' of git://github.com/stefanha/qemu 2012-10-06 18:54:14 +02:00
vnc-auth-sasl.h aio / timers: Untangle include files 2013-08-22 19:10:27 +02:00
vnc-auth-vencrypt.c aio / timers: Untangle include files 2013-08-22 19:10:27 +02:00
vnc-auth-vencrypt.h
vnc-enc-hextile-template.h pixman/vnc: use pixman images in vnc. 2012-11-01 14:00:04 +01:00
vnc-enc-hextile.c pixman/vnc: remove dead code. 2012-11-01 14:00:05 +01:00
vnc-enc-tight.c console: Remove unused QEMU_BIG_ENDIAN_FLAG 2014-09-05 15:38:04 +02:00
vnc-enc-tight.h vnc: tight add PNG encoding 2010-07-26 17:36:14 -05:00
vnc-enc-zlib.c Use glib memory allocation and free functions 2011-08-20 23:01:08 -05:00
vnc-enc-zrle-template.c vnc: Add ZRLE and ZYWRLE encodings. 2011-02-23 16:28:28 -06:00
vnc-enc-zrle.c pixman/vnc: use pixman images in vnc. 2012-11-01 14:00:04 +01:00
vnc-enc-zrle.h vnc: Add ZRLE and ZYWRLE encodings. 2011-02-23 16:28:28 -06:00
vnc-enc-zywrle-template.c Fix spelling in comments, documentation and messages 2011-12-14 11:09:44 +00:00
vnc-enc-zywrle.h misc: Spelling and grammar fixes in comments 2013-10-26 13:06:45 +04:00
vnc-jobs.c vnc dirty tracking optinizations. 2014-03-11 10:53:17 +00:00
vnc-jobs.h vnc: add missing static 2012-11-01 19:49:45 +01:00
vnc-palette.c ui/vnc-palette.c: Include headers it needs 2012-12-06 09:17:05 +01:00
vnc-palette.h misc: move include files to include/qemu/ 2012-12-19 08:32:39 +01:00
vnc-tls.c vnc-tls: Clean up dead store in vnc_set_x509_credential() 2014-09-18 08:01:53 +02:00
vnc-tls.h misc: move include files to include/qemu/ 2012-12-19 08:32:39 +01:00
vnc-ws.c aio / timers: Untangle include files 2013-08-22 19:10:27 +02:00
vnc-ws.h TLS support for VNC Websockets 2013-05-03 12:04:57 -05:00
vnc.c ui/vnc: set TCP_NODELAY 2014-09-17 15:14:41 +02:00
vnc.h vnc update fix 2014-07-25 09:43:31 +02:00
vnc_keysym.h qemu-char: add missing characters used in keymaps 2013-11-13 15:48:38 +04:00
x_keymap.c
x_keymap.h Delete useless 'extern' qualifiers for functions 2011-01-23 16:21:20 +00:00