Documentation: Move image format descriptions to own section

The description of the image formats is too long to be a subitem of a parameter
description. It will become even longer when we include the options provided by
the respective format.

Signed-off-by: Kevin Wolf <kwolf@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Anthony Liguori <aliguori@us.ibm.com>
This commit is contained in:
Kevin Wolf 2009-10-28 12:49:15 +01:00 committed by Anthony Liguori
parent 7273a2dbcc
commit f932c04039
1 changed files with 41 additions and 37 deletions

View File

@ -25,43 +25,8 @@ differ
@item base_fmt
is the disk image format of @var{base_image}. for more information look at @var{fmt}
@item fmt
is the disk image format. It is guessed automatically in most cases. The following formats are supported:
@table @code
@item raw
Raw disk image format (default). This format has the advantage of
being simple and easily exportable to all other emulators. If your
file system supports @emph{holes} (for example in ext2 or ext3 on
Linux or NTFS on Windows), then only the written sectors will reserve
space. Use @code{qemu-img info} to know the real size used by the
image or @code{ls -ls} on Unix/Linux.
@item host_device
Host device format. This format should be used instead of raw when
converting to block devices or other devices where "holes" are not
supported.
@item qcow2
QEMU image format, the most versatile format. Use it to have smaller
images (useful if your filesystem does not supports holes, for example
on Windows), optional AES encryption, zlib based compression and
support of multiple VM snapshots.
@item qcow
Old QEMU image format. Left for compatibility.
@item cow
User Mode Linux Copy On Write image format. Used to be the only growable
image format in QEMU. It is supported only for compatibility with
previous versions. It does not work on win32.
@item vdi
VirtualBox 1.1 compatible image format.
@item vmdk
VMware 3 and 4 compatible image format.
@item cloop
Linux Compressed Loop image, useful only to reuse directly compressed
CD-ROM images present for example in the Knoppix CD-ROMs.
@end table
is the disk image format. It is guessed automatically in most cases. See below
for a description of the supported disk formats.
@item size
is the disk image size in bytes. Optional suffixes @code{k} or @code{K}
@ -150,6 +115,45 @@ they are displayed too.
List, apply, create or delete snapshots in image @var{filename}.
@end table
Supported image file formats:
@table @option
@item raw
Raw disk image format (default). This format has the advantage of
being simple and easily exportable to all other emulators. If your
file system supports @emph{holes} (for example in ext2 or ext3 on
Linux or NTFS on Windows), then only the written sectors will reserve
space. Use @code{qemu-img info} to know the real size used by the
image or @code{ls -ls} on Unix/Linux.
@item host_device
Host device format. This format should be used instead of raw when
converting to block devices or other devices where "holes" are not
supported.
@item qcow2
QEMU image format, the most versatile format. Use it to have smaller
images (useful if your filesystem does not supports holes, for example
on Windows), optional AES encryption, zlib based compression and
support of multiple VM snapshots.
@item qcow
Old QEMU image format. Left for compatibility.
@item cow
User Mode Linux Copy On Write image format. Used to be the only growable
image format in QEMU. It is supported only for compatibility with
previous versions. It does not work on win32.
@item vdi
VirtualBox 1.1 compatible image format.
@item vmdk
VMware 3 and 4 compatible image format.
@item cloop
Linux Compressed Loop image, useful only to reuse directly compressed
CD-ROM images present for example in the Knoppix CD-ROMs.
@end table
@c man end
@ignore