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+                          QEMU Monitor Protocol
+                          =====================
+
+Introduction
+-------------
+
+The QEMU Monitor Protocol (QMP) allows applications to communicate with
+QEMU's Monitor.
+
+QMP is JSON[1] based and currently has the following features:
+
+- Lightweight, text-based, easy to parse data format
+- Asynchronous messages support (ie. events)
+- Capabilities Negotiation
+
+For detailed information on QMP's usage, please, refer to the following files:
+
+o qmp-spec.txt      QEMU Monitor Protocol current specification
+o qmp-commands.txt  QMP supported commands (auto-generated at build-time)
+o qmp-events.txt    List of available asynchronous events
+
+There is also a simple Python script called 'qmp-shell' available.
+
+IMPORTANT: It's strongly recommended to read the 'Stability Considerations'
+section in the qmp-commands.txt file before making any serious use of QMP.
+
+
+[1] http://www.json.org
+
+Usage
+-----
+
+To enable QMP, you need a QEMU monitor instance in "control mode". There are
+two ways of doing this.
+
+The simplest one is using the '-qmp' command-line option. The following
+example makes QMP available on localhost port 4444:
+
+  $ qemu [...] -qmp tcp:localhost:4444,server
+
+However, in order to have more complex combinations, like multiple monitors,
+the '-mon' command-line option should be used along with the '-chardev' one.
+For instance, the following example creates one user monitor on stdio and one
+QMP monitor on localhost port 4444.
+
+   $ qemu [...] -chardev stdio,id=mon0 -mon chardev=mon0,mode=readline \
+                -chardev socket,id=mon1,host=localhost,port=4444,server \
+                -mon chardev=mon1,mode=control
+
+Please, refer to QEMU's manpage for more information.
+
+Simple Testing
+--------------
+
+To manually test QMP one can connect with telnet and issue commands by hand:
+
+$ telnet localhost 4444
+Trying 127.0.0.1...
+Connected to localhost.
+Escape character is '^]'.
+{"QMP": {"version": {"qemu": {"micro": 50, "minor": 13, "major": 0}, "package": ""}, "capabilities": []}}
+{ "execute": "qmp_capabilities" }
+{"return": {}}
+{ "execute": "query-version" }
+{"return": {"qemu": {"micro": 50, "minor": 13, "major": 0}, "package": ""}}
+
+Development Process
+-------------------
+
+When changing QMP's interface (by adding new commands, events or modifying
+existing ones) it's mandatory to update the relevant documentation, which is
+one (or more) of the files listed in the 'Introduction' section*.
+
+Also, it's strongly recommended to send the documentation patch first, before
+doing any code change. This is so because:
+
+  1. Avoids the code dictating the interface
+
+  2. Review can improve your interface.  Letting that happen before
+     you implement it can save you work.
+
+* The qmp-commands.txt file is generated from the qmp-commands.hx one, which
+  is the file that should be edited.
+
+Homepage
+--------
+
+http://wiki.qemu.org/QMP