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+QEMU Block Bitmap (QBM)
+=======================
+
+QBM is a multi-file disk format to allow storing persistent block bitmaps along
+with the tracked data image.  A QBM image includes one json descriptor file,
+one data image, one or more bitmap files that describe the block dirty status
+of the data image.
+
+The json file describes the structure of the image. The structure of the json
+descriptor file is:
+
+    QBM-JSON-FILE := { "QBM": DESC-JSON }
+
+    DESC-JSON := { "version": 1,
+                   "image": IMAGE,
+                   "BITMAPS": BITMAPS
+                 }
+
+Fields in the top level json dictionary are:
+
+@version: An integer which must be 1.
+@image: A dictionary in IMAGE schema, as described later. It provides the
+        information of the data image where user data is stored. Its format is
+        documented in the "IMAGE schema" section.
+@bitmaps: A dictionary that describes one ore more bitmap files. The keys into
+          the dictionary are the names of bitmap, which must be strings, and
+          each value is a dictionary describing the information of the bitmap,
+          as documented below in the "BITMAP schema" section.
+
+=== IMAGE schema ===
+
+An IMAGE records the information of an image (such as a data image or a backing
+file). It has following fields:
+
+@file: The file name string of the referenced image. If it's a relative path,
+       the file should be found relative to the descriptor file's
+       location.
+@format: The format string of the file.
+
+=== BITMAP schema ===
+
+A BITMAP dictionary records the information of a bitmap (such as a dirty bitmap
+or a block allocation status bitmap). It has following mandatory fields:
+
+@file: The name of the bitmap file. The bitmap file is in little endian, both
+       byte-order-wise and bit-order-wise, which means the LSB in the byte 0
+       corresponds to the first sectors.
+@granularity-bytes: How many bytes of data does one bit in the bitmap track.
+                    This value must be a power of 2 and no less than 512.
+@type: The type of the bitmap.  Currently only "dirty" and "allocation" are
+       supported.
+       "dirty" indicates a block dirty bitmap; "allocation" indicates a
+       allocation status bitmap. There must be at most one "allocation" bitmap.
+
+If the type of the bitmap is "allocation", an extra field "backing" is also
+accepted:
+
+@backing: a dictionary as specified in the IMAGE schema. It can be used to
+          adding a backing file to raw image.
+
+
+=== Extended fields ===
+
+Implementations are allowed to extend the format schema by inserting additinoal
+members into above dictionaries, with key names that starts with either
+an "ext-hard-" or an "ext-soft-" prefix.
+
+Extended fields prefixed with "ext-soft-" are optional and can be ignored by
+parsers if they do not support it; fields starting with "ext-hard-" are
+mandatory and cannot be ignored, a parser should not proceed parsing the image
+if it does not support it.
+
+It is strongly recommended that the application names are also included in the
+extention name string, such as "ext-hard-qemu-", if the effect or
+interpretation of the field is local to a specific application.
+
+For example, QEMU can implement a "checksum" feature to make sure no files
+referred to by the json descriptor are modified inconsistently, by adding
+"ext-soft-qemu-checksum" fields in "image" and "bitmaps" descriptions, like in
+the json text found below.
+
+=== QBM descriptor file example ===
+
+This is the content of a QBM image's json descriptor file, which contains a
+data image (data.img), and three bitmaps, out of which the "allocation" bitmap
+associates a backing file to this image (base.img).
+
+{ "QBM": {
+    "version": 1,
+    "image": {
+        "file": "data.img",
+        "format": "raw"
+        "ext-soft-qemu-checksum": "9eff24b72bd693cc8aa3e887141b96f8",
+    },
+    "bitmaps": {
+        "0": {
+            "file": "bitmap0.bin",
+            "granularity-bytes": 512,
+            "type": "dirty"
+        },
+        "1": {
+            "file": "bitmap1.bin",
+            "granularity-bytes": 4096,
+            "type": "dirty"
+        },
+        "2": {
+            "file": "bitmap3.bin",
+            "granularity-bytes": 4096,
+            "type": "allocation"
+            "backing": {
+                "file": "base.img",
+                "format": "raw"
+                "ext-soft-qemu-checksum": "fcad1f672b2fb19948405e7a1a18c2a7",
+            },
+        }
+    }
+} }
+
