Trying to wrap my head around this - may be a solution for someone else too:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=513451 | From: "Richard W.M. Jones" <[email protected]> | To: [email protected] | Subject: Re: qemu-img: add stdin/stdout support | Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2021 19:16:51 +0100 | | 12 years after this bug was filed, and because this is the top hit for | "qemu-img" and stdin / stdout, I want to point out that this is now | possible in Debian and other Linux distros using nbdcopy (in package | libnbd-bin) + qemu-nbd. | | To stream from any qemu format such as qcow2 out to stdout: | | nbdcopy -- [ qemu-nbd -f qcow2 image.qcow2 ] - | file - | | To stream from stdin into any qemu format such as qcow2: | | zcat image.gz | nbdcopy -- - [ qemu-nbd -f qcow2 output.qcow2 ] | See also: - https://qemu-devel.nongnu.narkive.com/SLLyf9sr/qemu-img - https://www.tecmint.com/migrate-virtualbox-vms-into-kvm-vms/ - https://access.redhat.com/discussions/4340061 - https://superuser.com/questions/590968/quickest-way-to-merge-all-snapshots-in-virtualbox - "As of VirtualBox 6.0.8, this still works. – Paul Sturm Aug 29, 2019 at 15:11" Note: I'm using gmail web which aiui breaks threading but I used the same subject line (and I only just subscribed now to send this email in case it's useful to someone), but the above is reply to the following: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-discuss/2020-01/msg00028.html > From: Shifeng Zhang > Subject: Re: Did qemu-img support stdin/stdout > Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 12:42:32 -0700 > > Mark, thanks for the reply and the confirmation. > Steve > > On Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 11:06 AM Max Reitz <address@hidden> wrote: > On 10.01.20 17:40, Shifeng Zhang wrote: > > Hi, > > > > Is it possible to use qemu-img with pipe? like qemu-img convert -f raw > > -O vmdk - | other_command? > > > > I tried to use pipe and seemed not working, hopefully some experts can > > confirm it works with pipe or not. > > Hi, > > No, it isn’t, unfortunately. The files need to be seekable. > > Max
