Re: [Qemu-devel] Mount image file feature

[Max Reitz]

On 27.08.2015 03:05, G 3 wrote:
> I want to share files between my host and guest computer. A feature I
> want to add would be a new menu item in the Machine menu called "Mount
> Image File...". When the user selects it, a file open dialog box
> displays. The user can then select the image file with the file he wants
> to use. After pushing the OK button, the image file would be mounted
> like a USB flash drive. This menu item would only show up if there is
> usb support in the guest machine.
> 
> Would you be open to accepting such a feature?

Generally I'd expect this to be functionality exposed by the management
layer. For instance using virt-manager, this can be achived as follows:
Switch to "Details", then click "Add Hardware", choose "Storage" and
"USB" as the "Bus type". Choose the image, click "Finish", done.

The main problem I see with adding this functionality to qemu itself
would be having to get even further into the GUI business, which hasn't
worked out too well so far…

If we didn't care about that, than we'd have to think about the
implementation. Internally, we'd probably call QMP's blockdev-add to
open the image file, and then QMP's device_add to add the USB device. So
then qemu would use its own management interfaces to execute the
operation, which seems a bit strange to me, further hinting at the fact
that we probably should leave this to the management layer.

Max

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