VirtualBox Main API
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The IMediumAttachment interface links storage media to virtual machines. More...
Public Attributes | |
readonly attribute IMachine | machine |
Machine object for this medium attachment. | |
readonly attribute IMedium | medium |
Medium object associated with this attachment; it can be null for removable devices. | |
readonly attribute wstring | controller |
Name of the storage controller of this attachment; this refers to one of the controllers in IMachine::storageControllers by name. | |
readonly attribute long | port |
Port number of this attachment. | |
readonly attribute long | device |
Device slot number of this attachment. | |
readonly attribute DeviceType | type |
Device type of this attachment. | |
readonly attribute boolean | passthrough |
Pass I/O requests through to a device on the host. | |
readonly attribute boolean | temporaryEject |
Whether guest-triggered eject results in unmounting the medium. | |
readonly attribute boolean | isEjected |
Signals that the removable medium has been ejected. | |
readonly attribute boolean | nonRotational |
Whether the associated medium is non-rotational. | |
readonly attribute boolean | discard |
Whether the associated medium supports discarding unused blocks. | |
readonly attribute boolean | hotPluggable |
Whether this attachment is hot pluggable or not. | |
readonly attribute IBandwidthGroup | bandwidthGroup |
The bandwidth group this medium attachment is assigned to. | |
The IMediumAttachment interface links storage media to virtual machines.
For each medium (IMedium) which has been attached to a storage controller (IStorageController) of a machine (IMachine) via the IMachine::attachDevice method, one instance of IMediumAttachment is added to the machine's IMachine::mediumAttachments array attribute.
Each medium attachment specifies the storage controller as well as a port and device number and the IMedium instance representing a virtual hard disk or floppy or DVD image.
For removable media (DVDs or floppies), there are two additional options. For one, the IMedium instance can be null
to represent an empty drive with no media inserted (see IMachine::mountMedium); secondly, the medium can be one of the pseudo-media for host drives listed in IHost::DVDDrives or IHost::floppyDrives.
Hard disks are attached to virtual machines using the IMachine::attachDevice method and detached using the IMachine::detachDevice method. Depending on a medium's type (see IMedium::type), hard disks are attached either directly or indirectly.
When a hard disk is being attached directly, it is associated with the virtual machine and used for hard disk operations when the machine is running. When a hard disk is being attached indirectly, a new differencing hard disk linked to it is implicitly created and this differencing hard disk is associated with the machine and used for hard disk operations. This also means that if IMachine::attachDevice performs a direct attachment then the same hard disk will be returned in response to the subsequent IMachine::getMedium call; however if an indirect attachment is performed then IMachine::getMedium will return the implicitly created differencing hard disk, not the original one passed to IMachine::attachDevice. In detail:
Note that the same hard disk, regardless of its type, may be attached to more than one virtual machine at a time. In this case, the machine that is started first gains exclusive access to the hard disk and attempts to start other machines having this hard disk attached will fail until the first machine is powered down.
Detaching hard disks is performed in a deferred fashion. This means that the given hard disk remains associated with the given machine after a successful IMachine::detachDevice call until IMachine::saveSettings is called to save all changes to machine settings to disk. This deferring is necessary to guarantee that the hard disk configuration may be restored at any time by a call to IMachine::discardSettings before the settings are saved (committed).
Note that if IMachine::discardSettings is called after indirectly attaching some hard disks to the machine but before a call to IMachine::saveSettings is made, it will implicitly delete all differencing hard disks implicitly created by IMachine::attachDevice for these indirect attachments. Such implicitly created hard disks will also be immediately deleted when detached explicitly using the IMachine::detachDevice call if it is made before IMachine::saveSettings. This implicit deletion is safe because newly created differencing hard disks do not contain any user data.
However, keep in mind that detaching differencing hard disks that were implicitly created by IMachine::attachDevice before the last IMachine::saveSettings call will not implicitly delete them as they may already contain some data (for example, as a result of virtual machine execution). If these hard disks are no more necessary, the caller can always delete them explicitly using IMedium::deleteStorage after they are actually de-associated from this machine by the IMachine::saveSettings call.
When normal base or immutable hard disks are indirectly attached to a virtual machine then some additional steps are performed to make sure the virtual machine will have the most recent "view" of the hard disk being attached. These steps include walking through the machine's snapshots starting from the current one and going through ancestors up to the first snapshot. Hard disks attached to the virtual machine in all of the encountered snapshots are checked whether they are descendants of the given normal base or immutable hard disk. The first found child (which is the differencing hard disk) will be used instead of the normal base or immutable hard disk as a parent for creating a new differencing hard disk that will be actually attached to the machine. And only if no descendants are found or if the virtual machine does not have any snapshots then the normal base or immutable hard disk will be used itself as a parent for this differencing hard disk.
It is easier to explain what smart attachment does using the following example:
BEFORE attaching B.vdi: AFTER attaching B.vdi: Snapshot 1 (B.vdi) Snapshot 1 (B.vdi) Snapshot 2 (D1->B.vdi) Snapshot 2 (D1->B.vdi) Snapshot 3 (D2->D1.vdi) Snapshot 3 (D2->D1.vdi) Snapshot 4 (none) Snapshot 4 (none) CurState (none) CurState (D3->D2.vdi) NOT ... CurState (D3->B.vdi)
The first column is the virtual machine configuration before the base hard disk B.vdi
is attached, the second column shows the machine after this hard disk is attached. Constructs like D1->B.vdi
and similar mean that the hard disk that is actually attached to the machine is a differencing hard disk, D1.vdi
, which is linked to (based on) another hard disk, B.vdi
.
As we can see from the example, the hard disk B.vdi
was detached from the machine before taking Snapshot 4. Later, after Snapshot 4 was taken, the user decides to attach B.vdi
again. B.vdi
has dependent child hard disks (D1.vdi
, D2.vdi
), therefore it cannot be attached directly and needs an indirect attachment (i.e. implicit creation of a new differencing hard disk). Due to the smart attachment procedure, the new differencing hard disk (D3.vdi
) will be based on D2.vdi
, not on B.vdi
itself, since D2.vdi
is the most recent view of B.vdi
existing for this snapshot branch of the given virtual machine.
Note that if there is more than one descendant hard disk of the given base hard disk found in a snapshot, and there is an exact device, channel and bus match, then this exact match will be used. Otherwise, the youngest descendant will be picked up.
There is one more important aspect of the smart attachment procedure which is not related to snapshots at all. Before walking through the snapshots as described above, the backup copy of the current list of hard disk attachment is searched for descendants. This backup copy is created when the hard disk configuration is changed for the first time after the last IMachine::saveSettings call and used by IMachine::discardSettings to undo the recent hard disk changes. When such a descendant is found in this backup copy, it will be simply re-attached back, without creating a new differencing hard disk for it. This optimization is necessary to make it possible to re-attach the base or immutable hard disk to a different bus, channel or device slot without losing the contents of the differencing hard disk actually attached to the machine in place of it.
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readonly attribute IMachine IMediumAttachment::machine |
Machine object for this medium attachment.
readonly attribute IMedium IMediumAttachment::medium |
Medium object associated with this attachment; it can be null
for removable devices.
readonly attribute wstring IMediumAttachment::controller |
Name of the storage controller of this attachment; this refers to one of the controllers in IMachine::storageControllers by name.
readonly attribute long IMediumAttachment::port |
Port number of this attachment.
See IMachine::attachDevice for the meaning of this value for the different controller types.
readonly attribute long IMediumAttachment::device |
Device slot number of this attachment.
See IMachine::attachDevice for the meaning of this value for the different controller types.
readonly attribute DeviceType IMediumAttachment::type |
Device type of this attachment.
readonly attribute boolean IMediumAttachment::passthrough |
Pass I/O requests through to a device on the host.
readonly attribute boolean IMediumAttachment::temporaryEject |
Whether guest-triggered eject results in unmounting the medium.
readonly attribute boolean IMediumAttachment::isEjected |
Signals that the removable medium has been ejected.
This is not necessarily equivalent to having a null
medium association.
readonly attribute boolean IMediumAttachment::nonRotational |
Whether the associated medium is non-rotational.
readonly attribute boolean IMediumAttachment::discard |
Whether the associated medium supports discarding unused blocks.
readonly attribute boolean IMediumAttachment::hotPluggable |
Whether this attachment is hot pluggable or not.
readonly attribute IBandwidthGroup IMediumAttachment::bandwidthGroup |
The bandwidth group this medium attachment is assigned to.