diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | docs/interop/qcow2.txt | 45 |
1 files changed, 42 insertions, 3 deletions
diff --git a/docs/interop/qcow2.txt b/docs/interop/qcow2.txt index af5711e533..823cc266e0 100644 --- a/docs/interop/qcow2.txt +++ b/docs/interop/qcow2.txt @@ -79,9 +79,9 @@ 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. +For version 2, the header is exactly 72 bytes in length, and finishes here. +For version 3 or higher, the header length is at least 104 bytes, including +the next fields through header_length. 72 - 79: incompatible_features Bitmask of incompatible features. An implementation must @@ -164,6 +164,45 @@ in the description of a field. 100 - 103: header_length Length of the header structure in bytes. For version 2 images, the length is always assumed to be 72 bytes. + For version 3 it's at least 104 bytes and must be a multiple + of 8. + + +=== Additional fields (version 3 and higher) === + +In general, these fields are optional and may be safely ignored by the software, +as well as filled by zeros (which is equal to field absence), if software needs +to set field B, but does not care about field A which precedes B. More +formally, additional fields have the following compatibility rules: + +1. If the value of the additional field must not be ignored for correct +handling of the file, it will be accompanied by a corresponding incompatible +feature bit. + +2. If there are no unrecognized incompatible feature bits set, an unknown +additional field may be safely ignored other than preserving its value when +rewriting the image header. + +3. An explicit value of 0 will have the same behavior as when the field is not +present*, if not altered by a specific incompatible bit. + +*. A field is considered not present when header_length is less than or equal +to the field's offset. Also, all additional fields are not present for +version 2. + + < ... No additional fields in the header currently ... > + + +=== Header padding === + +@header_length must be a multiple of 8, which means that if the end of the last +additional field is not aligned, some padding is needed. This padding must be +zeroed, so that if some existing (or future) additional field will fall into +the padding, it will be interpreted accordingly to point [3.] of the previous +paragraph, i.e. in the same manner as when this field is not present. + + +=== Header extensions === Directly after the image header, optional sections called header extensions can be stored. Each extension has a structure like the following: |