This release introduces support for booting from cloud images, a new command to convert Qcow2 images, and a host of other new features, bug fixes, and improvements.
New Features
- Boot from Cloud Images: Alioth now supports booting guest Linux systems from cloud images, using a minimal Linux kernel and an initramfs with u-root as a bootloader.
- Qcow2 Image Conversion: A new
imgcommand has been added to the CLI to convert Qcow2 images to raw format. - Vsock Vhost-User Backend: The UdsVsock (Unix Domain Socket based Vsock) can now be run as a vhost-user backend.
- PSCI (AArch64): Implemented PSCI calls for
CPU_OFFandAFFINITY_INFO, which are prerequisites forkexecsupport in guests on aarch64.
Bug Fixes
- HVF (macOS):
- The zero register (X31) is now correctly handled for MMIO on aarch64.
- VCPUs are now interrupted on stop requests instead of being shut down immediately.
- Networking:
- Removed
INDIRECT_DESCfrom the virtio-net feature set. - vmnet: Fixed incorrect handling of zero-length buffers.
- Removed
- Devicetree (AArch64): Removed the
msi-parentproperty from the PCI bridge node to resolve a guest kernel warning. - Vsock:
- Guest-initiated connections are now set to non-blocking to prevent indefinite blocking.
- Fixed socket listener deregistration on reset.
- Block Device: Added file locking to disk images to prevent corruption from concurrent access.
- Vhost-User:
- Enforced a limit to serve only one VMM connection at a time.
- Fixed handling of 128-bit device features in the vhost-user protocol by truncating to 64-bit.
Documentation & Infrastructure
- Added documentation for booting cloud images.
- Added macOS entitlements and signing documentation.
- Added workflows for release automation.