[vbox-dev] Why Encryption doesn't change the Hard Disk format ?

[Klaus Espenlaub]

Alexey,

On 12.05.2015 13:08, Alexey Eromenko wrote:
> i.e. Maybe it would be better if VDI Disk after encryption will get a
> new format "Encrypted VDI", or "Encrypted VHD", at <IMedium> level ?

So far we treat encryption entirely orthogonal to the formats, which 
means that synthesizing formats would cause a lot of trouble in the API 
code (which assumes that there is a 1:1 correspondence of the format 
names and the backends known to the VD library, which can be extended by 
plugins).

> This will make it more transparent to debug & understand a bunch of
> encryption bugs. (of which we have a plenty, in v5.0-BETA3)

Not sure how it would directly help... the relevant code still needs to 
handle it correctly, and that's not related to the format names.

The GUI already shows if an image is encrypted, and if necessary this 
can be added to VBoxManage, too.

Klaus