VM image introspection

Image formats

RAW - Unstructured disk image format.
QCOW2 - Disk format supported by QEMU emulator.
ISO - Sector-by-sector copy of the data on a disk, stored in a binary file.
AKI - Indicates an Amazon Kernel Image.
AMI - Indicates an Amazon Machine Image.
ARI - Indicates an Amazon RAMDisk Image.
VDI - Disk format supported by VirtualBox virtual machine monitor and the QEMU emulator.
VHD - Common disk format used by virtual machine monitors from VMWare, VirtualBox, and others.
VMDK - Disk format supported by many common virtual machine monitors.

Every image format comes with a set a metadata embedded inside the image itself.

$ head -20 image.vmdk

# Disk DescriptorFile
version=1
CID=d5a0bce5
parentCID=ffffffff
createType="streamOptimized"

# Extent description
RDONLY 209714 SPARSE "generated-stream.vmdk"

# The Disk Data Base
#DDB

ddb.adapterType = "buslogic"
ddb.geometry.cylinders = "102"
ddb.geometry.heads = "64"
ddb.geometry.sectors = "32"
ddb.virtualHWVersion = "4"