> > > It's mostly intended to be used for accessing the files inside QEMU > > > disk images locally, without having to launch a virtual machine and > > > accessing then from there. > > > > mount -o loop does this. > > How is everybody missing the point? :-) mount -o loop doesn't mount > qcow images.
Using dm-userspace (a device mapper with mappings generated by a userspace daemon instead of a kernel module) I believe it is possible to mount all kinds of weird and wonderful things - including things like qcow. The patches for dm-userspace are floating around, I think on the device mapper and Xen developer's mailing lists. Of course, this is a Linux-specific solution so an NBD server is probably still useful (can other OSes mount NBD? I assume so...?). In principle, you could use the NDB server to host storage for physical machines too, right? For instance you could opt for a fairly "thin" setup where all user disks are stored separately in qcow format to save space. This might be nice for some users of centralised storage systems... Cheers, Mark -- Dave: Just a question. What use is a unicyle with no seat? And no pedals! Mark: To answer a question with a question: What use is a skateboard? Dave: Skateboards have wheels. Mark: My wheel has a wheel! _______________________________________________ Qemu-devel mailing list Qemu-devel@nongnu.org http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/qemu-devel
