Public bug reported: $ dd if=/dev/urandom bs=1M of=1.img count=4 4+0 records in 4+0 records out 4194304 bytes (4,2 MB) copied, 1,0413 s, 4,0 MB/s $ qemu-img create -f qcow2 -b 1.img 2.img Formatting '2.img', fmt=qcow2 size=4194304 backing_file='1.img' encryption=off cluster_size=0 $ qemu-img convert -O qcow2 -o backing_file=1.img 2.img 3.img $ du -h ?.img 4,1M 1.img 144K 2.img 4,3M 3.img
The conversion result is bigger then the source! It appears that "-o backing_file" is not applied to data (as expected). I.e. all data is put into the resulting image: both from source image and "backing" image. Expected behavior is to put only data that is not present in backing_file. ** Affects: qemu Importance: Undecided Status: New -- "qemu-img convert -O qcow2 -o backing_file" makes huge images https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/660366 You received this bug notification because you are a member of qemu- devel-ml, which is subscribed to QEMU. Status in QEMU: New Bug description: $ dd if=/dev/urandom bs=1M of=1.img count=4 4+0 records in 4+0 records out 4194304 bytes (4,2 MB) copied, 1,0413 s, 4,0 MB/s $ qemu-img create -f qcow2 -b 1.img 2.img Formatting '2.img', fmt=qcow2 size=4194304 backing_file='1.img' encryption=off cluster_size=0 $ qemu-img convert -O qcow2 -o backing_file=1.img 2.img 3.img $ du -h ?.img 4,1M 1.img 144K 2.img 4,3M 3.img The conversion result is bigger then the source! It appears that "-o backing_file" is not applied to data (as expected). I.e. all data is put into the resulting image: both from source image and "backing" image. Expected behavior is to put only data that is not present in backing_file.