1 Introduction

For the purposes of this document, xl is used as a representation of any implementer of the libxl API. xl should be considered completely interchangeable with alternates, such as libvirt or xenopsd-xl.

1.1 Purpose

The domain image format is the context of a running domain used for snapshots of a domain or for transferring domains between hosts during migration.

There are a number of problems with the domain image format used in Xen 4.5 and earlier (the legacy format)

• There is no libxl context information. xl is required to send certain pieces of libxl context itself.

• The contents of the stream is passed directly through libxl to libxc. The legacy libxc format contained some information which belonged at the libxl level, resulting in awkward layer violation to return the information back to libxl.

• The legacy libxc format was inextensible, causing inextensibility in the legacy libxl handling.

This design addresses the above points, allowing for a completely self-contained, extensible stream with each layer responsible for its own appropriate information.

1.2 Not Yet Included

The following features are not yet fully specified and will be included in a future draft.

• ARM

2 Overview

The image format consists of a Header, followed by 1 or more Records. Each record consists of a type and length field, followed by any type-specific data.

3 Header

The header identifies the stream as a libxl stream, including the version of this specification that it complies with.

All fields in this header shall be in big-endian byte order, regardless of the setting of the endianness bit.

 0     1     2     3     4     5     6     7 octet
+-------------------------------------------------+
| ident                                           |
+-----------------------+-------------------------+
| version               | options                 |
+-----------------------+-------------------------+

The endianness shall be 0 (little-endian) for images generated on an i386, x86_64, or arm host.

4 Record Overview

A record has a record header, type specific data and a trailing footer. If length is not a multiple of 8, the body is padded with zeroes to align the end of the record on an 8 octet boundary.

 0     1     2     3     4     5     6     7 octet
+-----------------------+-------------------------+
| type                  | body_length             |
+-----------+-----------+-------------------------+
| body...                                         |
...
|           | padding (0 to 7 octets)             |
+-----------+-------------------------------------+

4.1 Emulator Records

Several records are specifically for emulators, and have a common sub header.

 0     1     2     3     4     5     6     7 octet
+------------------------+------------------------+
| emulator_id            | index                  |
+------------------------+------------------------+
| record specific data                            |
...
+-------------------------------------------------+

5 Records

5.1 END

A end record marks the end of the image, and shall be the final record in the stream.

 0     1     2     3     4     5     6     7 octet
+-------------------------------------------------+

The end record contains no fields; its body_length is 0.

5.2 LIBXC_CONTEXT

A libxc context record is a marker, indicating that the stream should be handed to xc_domain_restore(). libxc shall be responsible for reading its own image format from the stream.

 0     1     2     3     4     5     6     7 octet
+-------------------------------------------------+

The libxc context record contains no fields; its body_length is 0¹.

5.3 EMULATOR_XENSTORE_DATA

A set of xenstore key/value pairs for a specific emulator associated with the domain.

 0     1     2     3     4     5     6     7 octet
+------------------------+------------------------+
| emulator_id            | index                  |
+------------------------+------------------------+
| xenstore key/value data                         |
...
+-------------------------------------------------+

Xenstore key/value data are encoded as a packed sequence of (key, value) tuples. Each (key, value) tuple is a packed pair of NUL terminated octets, conforming to xenstore protocol character encoding (keys strictly as alphanumeric ASCII and -/_@, values expected to be human-readable ASCII).

Keys shall be relative to to the device models xenstore tree for the new domain. At the time of writing, keys are relative to the path

/local/domain/$dm_domid/device-model/$domid/

although this path is free to change moving forward, thus should not be assumed.

5.4 EMULATOR_CONTEXT

A context blob for a specific emulator associated with the domain.

 0     1     2     3     4     5     6     7 octet
+------------------------+------------------------+
| emulator_id            | index                  |
+------------------------+------------------------+
| emulator_ctx                                    |
...
+-------------------------------------------------+

The emulator_ctx is a binary blob interpreted by the emulator identified by emulator_id. Its format is unspecified.

5.5 CHECKPOINT_END

A checkpoint end record marks the end of a checkpoint in the image.

 0     1     2     3     4     5     6     7 octet
+-------------------------------------------------+

The end record contains no fields; its body_length is 0.

6 Future Extensions

All changes to this specification should bump the revision number in the title block.

All changes to the header require the header version to be increased.

The format may be extended by adding additional record types.

Extending an existing record type must be done by adding a new record type. This allows old images with the old record to still be restored.