[virt-tools-list] sparse files and ls

Gary Scarborough gscarborough at gmail.com
Wed Jun 8 15:19:32 UTC 2011


Not sure if this is a bug or in inconsistency so I figured I would post this
here before filing a bug.  When I create a qcow2 image file using qemu-img,
the default is a sparse file.  'ls -lash' shows that the file only has a
small size.  However, when I create a raw file, the same ls command shows
the size to be the full size of the image file, not just the size of the
contents.  At first I thought I just wasn't getting a sparse file, but
things like df show the drive to have the size actually in use.  I also
wonder if when I transfer the file using scp, am I sending a lot of zeroes
through the network needlessly?

Thanks for any insight.

Gary Scarborough
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