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>

5 files changed, 5 insertions, 12 deletions

diff --git a/tests/image-fuzzer/runner.py b/tests/image-fuzzer/runner.py
index b7002905e1..0a8743ef41 100755
--- a/tests/image-fuzzer/runner.py
+++ b/tests/image-fuzzer/runner.py
@@ -150,8 +150,7 @@ class TestEnv(object):
                           'discard $off $len'],
                          ['qemu-io', '$test_img', '-c',
                           'truncate $off']]
-        for fmt in ['raw', 'vmdk', 'vdi', 'cow', 'qcow2', 'file',
-                    'qed', 'vpc']:
+        for fmt in ['raw', 'vmdk', 'vdi', 'qcow2', 'file', 'qed', 'vpc']:
             self.commands.append(
                 ['qemu-img', 'convert', '-f', 'qcow2', '-O', fmt,
                  '$test_img', 'converted_image.' + fmt])
@@ -178,7 +177,7 @@ class TestEnv(object):
         by 'qemu-img create'.
         """
         # All formats supported by the 'qemu-img create' command.
-        backing_file_fmt = random.choice(['raw', 'vmdk', 'vdi', 'cow', 'qcow2',
+        backing_file_fmt = random.choice(['raw', 'vmdk', 'vdi', 'qcow2',
                                           'file', 'qed', 'vpc'])
         backing_file_name = 'backing_img.' + backing_file_fmt
         backing_file_size = random.randint(MIN_BACKING_FILE_SIZE,
diff --git a/tests/qemu-iotests/069 b/tests/qemu-iotests/069
index e661598c4a..ce9e0541b2 100755
--- a/tests/qemu-iotests/069
+++ b/tests/qemu-iotests/069
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ trap "_cleanup; exit \$status" 0 1 2 3 15
 . ./common.rc
 . ./common.filter
 
-_supported_fmt cow qed qcow qcow2 vmdk
+_supported_fmt qed qcow qcow2 vmdk
 _supported_proto file
 _supported_os Linux
 _unsupported_imgopts "subformat=monolithicFlat" "subformat=twoGbMaxExtentFlat"
diff --git a/tests/qemu-iotests/072 b/tests/qemu-iotests/072
index 58faa8b5a7..e4a723d733 100755
--- a/tests/qemu-iotests/072
+++ b/tests/qemu-iotests/072
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ trap "_cleanup; exit \$status" 0 1 2 3 15
 . ./common.rc
 . ./common.filter
 
-_supported_fmt vpc vmdk vhdx vdi qed qcow2 qcow cow
+_supported_fmt vpc vmdk vhdx vdi qed qcow2 qcow
 _supported_proto file
 _supported_os Linux
 
diff --git a/tests/qemu-iotests/099 b/tests/qemu-iotests/099
index a26d3d243e..ffc7ea795a 100755
--- a/tests/qemu-iotests/099
+++ b/tests/qemu-iotests/099
@@ -41,7 +41,7 @@ trap "_cleanup; exit \$status" 0 1 2 3 15
 
 # Basically all formats, but "raw" has issues with _filter_imgfmt regarding the
 # raw comparison image for blkverify; also, all images have to support creation
-_supported_fmt cow qcow qcow2 qed vdi vhdx vmdk vpc
+_supported_fmt qcow qcow2 qed vdi vhdx vmdk vpc
 _supported_proto file
 _supported_os Linux
 
diff --git a/tests/qemu-iotests/common b/tests/qemu-iotests/common
index 70df659d5b..89c6dde263 100644
--- a/tests/qemu-iotests/common
+++ b/tests/qemu-iotests/common
@@ -136,7 +136,6 @@ common options
 check options
     -raw                test raw (default)
     -bochs              test bochs
-    -cow                test cow
     -cloop              test cloop
     -parallels          test parallels
     -qcow               test qcow
@@ -182,11 +181,6 @@ testlist options
             xpand=false
             ;;
 
-        -cow)
-            IMGFMT=cow
-            xpand=false
-            ;;
-
         -cloop)
             IMGFMT=cloop
             IMGFMT_GENERIC=false