[Qemu-devel] [PATCH] doc: Preallocation does not require writing zeroes

[Max Reitz]

When preallocating an encrypted qcow2 image, it just lets the protocol
driver write data and then does not mark the clusters as zero.
Therefore, reading this image will yield effectively random data.

As such, we have not fulfilled the promise of always writing zeroes when
preallocating an image in a while.  It seems that nobody has really
cared, so change the documentation to conform to qemu's actual behavior.

Signed-off-by: Max Reitz <address@hidden>
---
 qapi/block-core.json         | 9 +++++----
 docs/qemu-block-drivers.texi | 4 ++--
 qemu-img.texi                | 4 ++--
 3 files changed, 9 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)

diff --git a/qapi/block-core.json b/qapi/block-core.json
index 0d43d4f37c..a4363b84d2 100644
--- a/qapi/block-core.json
+++ b/qapi/block-core.json
@@ -5167,10 +5167,11 @@
 # @off: no preallocation
 # @metadata: preallocate only for metadata
 # @falloc: like @full preallocation but allocate disk space by
-#          posix_fallocate() rather than writing zeros.
-# @full: preallocate all data by writing zeros to device to ensure disk
-#        space is really available. @full preallocation also sets up
-#        metadata correctly.
+#          posix_fallocate() rather than writing data.
+# @full: preallocate all data by writing it to the device to ensure
+#        disk space is really available. This data may or may not be
+#        zero, depending on the image format and storage.
+#        @full preallocation also sets up metadata correctly.
 #
 # Since: 2.2
 ##
diff --git a/docs/qemu-block-drivers.texi b/docs/qemu-block-drivers.texi
index 91ab0eceae..c02547e28c 100644
--- a/docs/qemu-block-drivers.texi
+++ b/docs/qemu-block-drivers.texi
@@ -31,8 +31,8 @@ Supported options:
 @item preallocation
 Preallocation mode (allowed values: @code{off}, @code{falloc}, @code{full}).
 @code{falloc} mode preallocates space for image by calling posix_fallocate().
-@code{full} mode preallocates space for image by writing zeros to underlying
-storage.
+@code{full} mode preallocates space for image by writing data to underlying
+storage.  This data may or may not be zero, depending on the storage location.
 @end table
 
 @item qcow2
diff --git a/qemu-img.texi b/qemu-img.texi
index c8e9bba515..b5156d6316 100644
--- a/qemu-img.texi
+++ b/qemu-img.texi
@@ -666,8 +666,8 @@ Supported options:
 @item preallocation
 Preallocation mode (allowed values: @code{off}, @code{falloc}, @code{full}).
 @code{falloc} mode preallocates space for image by calling posix_fallocate().
-@code{full} mode preallocates space for image by writing zeros to underlying
-storage.
+@code{full} mode preallocates space for image by writing data to underlying
+storage.  This data may or may not be zero, depending on the storage location.
 @end table
 
 @item qcow2
-- 
2.21.0