=head1 NAME

nbdkit-xz-filter - nbdkit xz filter

=head1 SYNOPSIS

 nbdkit --filter=xz file FILENAME.xz

=for paragraph

 nbdkit --filter=xz curl https://example.com/FILENAME.xz

=head1 DESCRIPTION

C<nbdkit-xz-filter> is a filter for L<nbdkit(1)> which uncompresses
the underlying plugin on the fly.  The filter only supports read-only
connections.

=head2 Getting best random access performance from xz

L<xz(1)> files are split into streams and blocks.  Most xz files
contain only one stream which contains one or more blocks.  You can
find out how many streams and blocks are in an xz file by doing:

 $ xz --list winxp.img.xz
 Strms  Blocks   Compressed Uncompressed  Ratio  Check   Filename
     1       1  2,100.0 MiB  6,144.0 MiB  0.342  CRC64   winxp.img.xz
    ↑↑↑     ↑↑↑
  streams  blocks

xz files are seekable on block boundaries only.  Seeking is done by
seeking directly to the lower block boundary, then uncompressing data
until the precise byte is reached.  As uncompressing xz data is slow,
B<to get best random access performance, you must prepare your xz
files with many small blocks.>

Use the I<--block-size> option with a small-ish block size.  For
example this is the same image compressed with a 16 MB block size:

 $ xz --best --block-size=16777216 winxp.img
             ─────────────────────
 $ xz --list winxp.img.xz
 Strms  Blocks   Compressed Uncompressed  Ratio  Check   Filename
     1     384  2,120.1 MiB  6,144.0 MiB  0.345  CRC64   winxp.img.xz
           ↑↑↑
          blocks

This file can be accessed randomly.  At most 16 MB will have to be
uncompressed to seek to any byte.

As you would expect, xz cannot compress as efficiently when using a
smaller block size.  The space penalty in the above example is
S<E<lt> 1%> of the compressed file size.

=head1 PARAMETERS

=over 4

=item B<xz-max-block=>SIZE

The maximum block size that the filter will read.  The filter will
refuse to read xz files that contain any block larger than this size.

See the discussion above about creating xz files with small block
sizes in order to reduce memory usage and increase performance.

This parameter is optional.  If not specified it defaults to 512M.

=item B<xz-max-depth=>N

Maximum number of blocks stored in the LRU block cache.

This parameter is optional.  If not specified it defaults to 8.

The filter may allocate up to
S<maximum block size in file × maxdepth>
bytes of memory I<per connection>.

=back

=head1 FILES

=over 4

=item F<$filterdir/nbdkit-xz-filter.so>

The filter.

Use C<nbdkit --dump-config> to find the location of C<$filterdir>.

=back

=head1 VERSION

C<nbdkit-xz-filter> first appeared in nbdkit 1.10.
It is derived from an earlier plugin that first appeared in nbdkit 1.0.

=head1 SEE ALSO

L<nbdkit(1)>,
L<nbdkit-filter(3)>,
L<nbdkit-curl-plugin(1)>,
L<nbdkit-file-plugin(1)>,
L<nbdkit-gzip-filter(1)>,
L<nbdkit-lzip-filter(1)>,
L<nbdkit-bzip2-filter(1)>,
L<xz(1)>.

=head1 AUTHORS

Richard W.M. Jones

=head1 COPYRIGHT

Copyright Red Hat
