--- /dev/null
+ QEMU Machine Protocol Specification
+
+0. About This Document
+======================
+
+Copyright (C) 2009-2015 Red Hat, Inc.
+
+This work is licensed under the terms of the GNU GPL, version 2 or
+later. See the COPYING file in the top-level directory.
+
+1. Introduction
+===============
+
+This document specifies the QEMU Machine Protocol (QMP), a JSON-based
+protocol which is available for applications to operate QEMU at the
+machine-level. It is also in use by the QEMU Guest Agent (QGA), which
+is available for host applications to interact with the guest
+operating system.
+
+2. Protocol Specification
+=========================
+
+This section details the protocol format. For the purpose of this document
+"Client" is any application which is using QMP to communicate with QEMU and
+"Server" is QEMU itself.
+
+JSON data structures, when mentioned in this document, are always in the
+following format:
+
+ json-DATA-STRUCTURE-NAME
+
+Where DATA-STRUCTURE-NAME is any valid JSON data structure, as defined
+by the JSON standard:
+
+http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc7159.txt
+
+The protocol is always encoded in UTF-8 except for synchronization
+bytes (documented below); although thanks to json-string escape
+sequences, the server will reply using only the strict ASCII subset.
+
+For convenience, json-object members mentioned in this document will
+be in a certain order. However, in real protocol usage they can be in
+ANY order, thus no particular order should be assumed. On the other
+hand, use of json-array elements presumes that preserving order is
+important unless specifically documented otherwise. Repeating a key
+within a json-object gives unpredictable results.
+
+Also for convenience, the server will accept an extension of
+'single-quoted' strings in place of the usual "double-quoted"
+json-string, and both input forms of strings understand an additional
+escape sequence of "\'" for a single quote. The server will only use
+double quoting on output.
+
+2.1 General Definitions
+-----------------------
+
+2.1.1 All interactions transmitted by the Server are json-objects, always
+ terminating with CRLF
+
+2.1.2 All json-objects members are mandatory when not specified otherwise
+
+2.2 Server Greeting
+-------------------
+
+Right when connected the Server will issue a greeting message, which signals
+that the connection has been successfully established and that the Server is
+ready for capabilities negotiation (for more information refer to section
+'4. Capabilities Negotiation').
+
+The greeting message format is:
+
+{ "QMP": { "version": json-object, "capabilities": json-array } }
+
+ Where,
+
+- The "version" member contains the Server's version information (the format
+ is the same of the query-version command)
+- The "capabilities" member specify the availability of features beyond the
+ baseline specification; the order of elements in this array has no
+ particular significance, so a client must search the entire array
+ when looking for a particular capability
+
+2.2.1 Capabilities
+------------------
+
+As of the date this document was last revised, no server or client
+capability strings have been defined.
+
+
+2.3 Issuing Commands
+--------------------
+
+The format for command execution is:
+
+{ "execute": json-string, "arguments": json-object, "id": json-value }
+
+ Where,
+
+- The "execute" member identifies the command to be executed by the Server
+- The "arguments" member is used to pass any arguments required for the
+ execution of the command, it is optional when no arguments are
+ required. Each command documents what contents will be considered
+ valid when handling the json-argument
+- The "id" member is a transaction identification associated with the
+ command execution, it is optional and will be part of the response if
+ provided. The "id" member can be any json-value, although most
+ clients merely use a json-number incremented for each successive
+ command
+
+2.4 Commands Responses
+----------------------
+
+There are two possible responses which the Server will issue as the result
+of a command execution: success or error.
+
+2.4.1 success
+-------------
+
+The format of a success response is:
+
+{ "return": json-value, "id": json-value }
+
+ Where,
+
+- The "return" member contains the data returned by the command, which
+ is defined on a per-command basis (usually a json-object or
+ json-array of json-objects, but sometimes a json-number, json-string,
+ or json-array of json-strings); it is an empty json-object if the
+ command does not return data
+- The "id" member contains the transaction identification associated
+ with the command execution if issued by the Client
+
+2.4.2 error
+-----------
+
+The format of an error response is:
+
+{ "error": { "class": json-string, "desc": json-string }, "id": json-value }
+
+ Where,
+
+- The "class" member contains the error class name (eg. "GenericError")
+- The "desc" member is a human-readable error message. Clients should
+ not attempt to parse this message.
+- The "id" member contains the transaction identification associated with
+ the command execution if issued by the Client
+
+NOTE: Some errors can occur before the Server is able to read the "id" member,
+in these cases the "id" member will not be part of the error response, even
+if provided by the client.
+
+2.5 Asynchronous events
+-----------------------
+
+As a result of state changes, the Server may send messages unilaterally
+to the Client at any time, when not in the middle of any other
+response. They are called "asynchronous events".
+
+The format of asynchronous events is:
+
+{ "event": json-string, "data": json-object,
+ "timestamp": { "seconds": json-number, "microseconds": json-number } }
+
+ Where,
+
+- The "event" member contains the event's name
+- The "data" member contains event specific data, which is defined in a
+ per-event basis, it is optional
+- The "timestamp" member contains the exact time of when the event
+ occurred in the Server. It is a fixed json-object with time in
+ seconds and microseconds relative to the Unix Epoch (1 Jan 1970); if
+ there is a failure to retrieve host time, both members of the
+ timestamp will be set to -1.
+
+For a listing of supported asynchronous events, please, refer to the
+qmp-events.txt file.
+
+2.5 QGA Synchronization
+-----------------------
+
+When using QGA, an additional synchronization feature is built into
+the protocol. If the Client sends a raw 0xFF sentinel byte (not valid
+JSON), then the Server will reset its state and discard all pending
+data prior to the sentinel. Conversely, if the Client makes use of
+the 'guest-sync-delimited' command, the Server will send a raw 0xFF
+sentinel byte prior to its response, to aid the Client in discarding
+any data prior to the sentinel.
+
+
+3. QMP Examples
+===============
+
+This section provides some examples of real QMP usage, in all of them
+"C" stands for "Client" and "S" stands for "Server".
+
+3.1 Server greeting
+-------------------
+
+S: { "QMP": { "version": { "qemu": { "micro": 50, "minor": 6, "major": 1 },
+ "package": ""}, "capabilities": []}}
+
+3.2 Client QMP negotiation
+--------------------------
+C: { "execute": "qmp_capabilities" }
+S: { "return": {}}
+
+3.3 Simple 'stop' execution
+---------------------------
+
+C: { "execute": "stop" }
+S: { "return": {} }
+
+3.4 KVM information
+-------------------
+
+C: { "execute": "query-kvm", "id": "example" }
+S: { "return": { "enabled": true, "present": true }, "id": "example"}
+
+3.5 Parsing error
+------------------
+
+C: { "execute": }
+S: { "error": { "class": "GenericError", "desc": "Invalid JSON syntax" } }
+
+3.6 Powerdown event
+-------------------
+
+S: { "timestamp": { "seconds": 1258551470, "microseconds": 802384 },
+ "event": "POWERDOWN" }
+
+4. Capabilities Negotiation
+===========================
+
+When a Client successfully establishes a connection, the Server is in
+Capabilities Negotiation mode.
+
+In this mode only the qmp_capabilities command is allowed to run, all
+other commands will return the CommandNotFound error. Asynchronous
+messages are not delivered either.
+
+Clients should use the qmp_capabilities command to enable capabilities
+advertised in the Server's greeting (section '2.2 Server Greeting') they
+support.
+
+When the qmp_capabilities command is issued, and if it does not return an
+error, the Server enters in Command mode where capabilities changes take
+effect, all commands (except qmp_capabilities) are allowed and asynchronous
+messages are delivered.
+
+5 Compatibility Considerations
+==============================
+
+All protocol changes or new features which modify the protocol format in an
+incompatible way are disabled by default and will be advertised by the
+capabilities array (section '2.2 Server Greeting'). Thus, Clients can check
+that array and enable the capabilities they support.
+
+The QMP Server performs a type check on the arguments to a command. It
+generates an error if a value does not have the expected type for its
+key, or if it does not understand a key that the Client included. The
+strictness of the Server catches wrong assumptions of Clients about
+the Server's schema. Clients can assume that, when such validation
+errors occur, they will be reported before the command generated any
+side effect.
+
+However, Clients must not assume any particular:
+
+- Length of json-arrays
+- Size of json-objects; in particular, future versions of QEMU may add
+ new keys and Clients should be able to ignore them.
+- Order of json-object members or json-array elements
+- Amount of errors generated by a command, that is, new errors can be added
+ to any existing command in newer versions of the Server
+
+Any command or field name beginning with "x-" is deemed experimental,
+and may be withdrawn or changed in an incompatible manner in a future
+release.
+
+Of course, the Server does guarantee to send valid JSON. But apart from
+this, a Client should be "conservative in what they send, and liberal in
+what they accept".
+
+6. Downstream extension of QMP
+==============================
+
+We recommend that downstream consumers of QEMU do *not* modify QMP.
+Management tools should be able to support both upstream and downstream
+versions of QMP without special logic, and downstream extensions are
+inherently at odds with that.
+
+However, we recognize that it is sometimes impossible for downstreams to
+avoid modifying QMP. Both upstream and downstream need to take care to
+preserve long-term compatibility and interoperability.
+
+To help with that, QMP reserves JSON object member names beginning with
+'__' (double underscore) for downstream use ("downstream names"). This
+means upstream will never use any downstream names for its commands,
+arguments, errors, asynchronous events, and so forth.
+
+Any new names downstream wishes to add must begin with '__'. To
+ensure compatibility with other downstreams, it is strongly
+recommended that you prefix your downstream names with '__RFQDN_' where
+RFQDN is a valid, reverse fully qualified domain name which you
+control. For example, a qemu-kvm specific monitor command would be:
+
+ (qemu) __org.linux-kvm_enable_irqchip
+
+Downstream must not change the server greeting (section 2.2) other than
+to offer additional capabilities. But see below for why even that is
+discouraged.
+
+Section '5 Compatibility Considerations' applies to downstream as well
+as to upstream, obviously. It follows that downstream must behave
+exactly like upstream for any input not containing members with
+downstream names ("downstream members"), except it may add members
+with downstream names to its output.
+
+Thus, a client should not be able to distinguish downstream from
+upstream as long as it doesn't send input with downstream members, and
+properly ignores any downstream members in the output it receives.
+
+Advice on downstream modifications:
+
+1. Introducing new commands is okay. If you want to extend an existing
+ command, consider introducing a new one with the new behaviour
+ instead.
+
+2. Introducing new asynchronous messages is okay. If you want to extend
+ an existing message, consider adding a new one instead.
+
+3. Introducing new errors for use in new commands is okay. Adding new
+ errors to existing commands counts as extension, so 1. applies.
+
+4. New capabilities are strongly discouraged. Capabilities are for
+ evolving the basic protocol, and multiple diverging basic protocol
+ dialects are most undesirable.
Code Review / kvmfornfv.git / blobdiff