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diff --git a/docs/blkverify.txt b/docs/blkverify.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..d556dc4e6d --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/blkverify.txt @@ -0,0 +1,69 @@ += Block driver correctness testing with blkverify = + +== Introduction == + +This document describes how to use the blkverify protocol to test that a block +driver is operating correctly. + +It is difficult to test and debug block drivers against real guests. Often +processes inside the guest will crash because corrupt sectors were read as part +of the executable. Other times obscure errors are raised by a program inside +the guest. These issues are extremely hard to trace back to bugs in the block +driver. + +Blkverify solves this problem by catching data corruption inside QEMU the first +time bad data is read and reporting the disk sector that is corrupted. + +== How it works == + +The blkverify protocol has two child block devices, the "test" device and the +"raw" device. Read/write operations are mirrored to both devices so their +state should always be in sync. + +The "raw" device is a raw image, a flat file, that has identical starting +contents to the "test" image. The idea is that the "raw" device will handle +read/write operations correctly and not corrupt data. It can be used as a +reference for comparison against the "test" device. + +After a mirrored read operation completes, blkverify will compare the data and +raise an error if it is not identical. This makes it possible to catch the +first instance where corrupt data is read. + +== Example == + +Imagine raw.img has 0xcd repeated throughout its first sector: + + $ ./qemu-io -c 'read -v 0 512' raw.img + 00000000: cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd ................ + 00000010: cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd ................ + [...] + 000001e0: cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd ................ + 000001f0: cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd cd ................ + read 512/512 bytes at offset 0 + 512.000000 bytes, 1 ops; 0.0000 sec (97.656 MiB/sec and 200000.0000 ops/sec) + +And test.img is corrupt, its first sector is zeroed when it shouldn't be: + + $ ./qemu-io -c 'read -v 0 512' test.img + 00000000: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ + 00000010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ + [...] + 000001e0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ + 000001f0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ + read 512/512 bytes at offset 0 + 512.000000 bytes, 1 ops; 0.0000 sec (81.380 MiB/sec and 166666.6667 ops/sec) + +This error is caught by blkverify: + + $ ./qemu-io -c 'read 0 512' blkverify:a.img:b.img + blkverify: read sector_num=0 nb_sectors=4 contents mismatch in sector 0 + +A more realistic scenario is verifying the installation of a guest OS: + + $ ./qemu-img create raw.img 16G + $ ./qemu-img create -f qcow2 test.qcow2 16G + $ x86_64-softmmu/qemu-system-x86_64 -cdrom debian.iso \ + -drive file=blkverify:raw.img:test.qcow2 + +If the installation is aborted when blkverify detects corruption, use qemu-io +to explore the contents of the disk image at the sector in question. |