block: Add support for Secure Shell (ssh) block device.

  qemu-system-x86_64 -drive file=ssh://hostname/some/image

QEMU will ssh into 'hostname' and open '/some/image' which is made
available as a standard block device.

You can specify a username (ssh://user@host/...) and/or a port number
(ssh://host:port/...).  You can also use an alternate syntax using
properties (file.user, file.host, file.port, file.path).

Current limitations:

- Authentication must be done without passwords or passphrases, using
  ssh-agent.  Other authentication methods are not supported.

- Uses a single connection, instead of concurrent AIO with multiple
  SSH connections.

This is implemented using libssh2 on the client side.  The server just
requires a regular ssh daemon with sftp-server support.  Most ssh
daemons on Unix/Linux systems will work out of the box.

Signed-off-by: Richard W.M. Jones <rjones@redhat.com>
Cc: Stefan Hajnoczi <stefanha@gmail.com>
Cc: Kevin Wolf <kwolf@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Stefan Hajnoczi <stefanha@redhat.com>

1 files changed, 49 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/qemu-doc.texi b/qemu-doc.texi
index af84bef0e9..5b36004873 100644
--- a/qemu-doc.texi
+++ b/qemu-doc.texi
@@ -423,6 +423,7 @@ snapshots.
 * disk_images_sheepdog::      Sheepdog disk images
 * disk_images_iscsi::         iSCSI LUNs
 * disk_images_gluster::       GlusterFS disk images
+* disk_images_ssh::           Secure Shell (ssh) disk images
 @end menu
 
 @node disk_images_quickstart
@@ -1038,6 +1039,54 @@ qemu-system-x86_64 -drive file=gluster+unix:///testvol/dir/a.img?socket=/tmp/glu
 qemu-system-x86_64 -drive file=gluster+rdma://1.2.3.4:24007/testvol/a.img
 @end example
 
+@node disk_images_ssh
+@subsection Secure Shell (ssh) disk images
+
+You can access disk images located on a remote ssh server
+by using the ssh protocol:
+
+@example
+qemu-system-x86_64 -drive file=ssh://[@var{user}@@]@var{server}[:@var{port}]/@var{path}[?host_key_check=@var{host_key_check}]
+@end example
+
+Alternative syntax using properties:
+
+@example
+qemu-system-x86_64 -drive file.driver=ssh[,file.user=@var{user}],file.host=@var{server}[,file.port=@var{port}],file.path=@var{path}[,file.host_key_check=@var{host_key_check}]
+@end example
+
+@var{ssh} is the protocol.
+
+@var{user} is the remote user.  If not specified, then the local
+username is tried.
+
+@var{server} specifies the remote ssh server.  Any ssh server can be
+used, but it must implement the sftp-server protocol.  Most Unix/Linux
+systems should work without requiring any extra configuration.
+
+@var{port} is the port number on which sshd is listening.  By default
+the standard ssh port (22) is used.
+
+@var{path} is the path to the disk image.
+
+The optional @var{host_key_check} parameter controls how the remote
+host's key is checked.  The default is @code{yes} which means to use
+the local @file{.ssh/known_hosts} file.  Setting this to @code{no}
+turns off known-hosts checking.  Or you can check that the host key
+matches a specific fingerprint:
+@code{host_key_check=md5:78:45:8e:14:57:4f:d5:45:83:0a:0e:f3:49:82:c9:c8}
+(@code{sha1:} can also be used as a prefix, but note that OpenSSH
+tools only use MD5 to print fingerprints).
+
+Currently authentication must be done using ssh-agent.  Other
+authentication methods may be supported in future.
+
+Note: The ssh driver does not obey disk flush requests (ie. to commit
+data to the backing disk when the guest requests it).  This is because
+the underlying protocol (SFTP) does not support this.  Thus there is a
+risk of guest disk corruption if the remote server or network goes
+down during writes.
+
 @node pcsys_network
 @section Network emulation