Signed-off-by: Pierrick Bouvier <pierrick.bouvier@linaro.org>
---
 docs/devel/control-flow-integrity.rst |   2 +
 docs/devel/multi-thread-tcg.rst       |   2 +
 docs/glossary/index.rst               | 238 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 docs/index.rst                        |   1 +
 docs/system/arm/virt.rst              |   2 +
 docs/system/images.rst                |   2 +
 docs/tools/qemu-nbd.rst               |   2 +
 7 files changed, 249 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 docs/glossary/index.rst

diff --git a/docs/devel/control-flow-integrity.rst b/docs/devel/control-flow-integrity.rst
index e6b73a4fe1a..3d5702fa4cc 100644
--- a/docs/devel/control-flow-integrity.rst
+++ b/docs/devel/control-flow-integrity.rst
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+.. _cfi:
+
 ============================
 Control-Flow Integrity (CFI)
 ============================
diff --git a/docs/devel/multi-thread-tcg.rst b/docs/devel/multi-thread-tcg.rst
index d706c27ea74..7fd0a07633d 100644
--- a/docs/devel/multi-thread-tcg.rst
+++ b/docs/devel/multi-thread-tcg.rst
@@ -4,6 +4,8 @@
   This work is licensed under the terms of the GNU GPL, version 2 or
   later. See the COPYING file in the top-level directory.
 
+.. _mttcg:
+
 ==================
 Multi-threaded TCG
 ==================
diff --git a/docs/glossary/index.rst b/docs/glossary/index.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..a2d4f3eae16
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/glossary/index.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,238 @@
+.. _Glossary:
+
+--------
+Glossary
+--------
+
+This section of the manual presents *simply* acronyms and terms QEMU developers
+use.
+
+Accelerator
+-----------
+
+A specific API used to accelerate execution of guest instructions. It can be
+hardware-based, through a virtualization API provided by the host OS (kvm, hvf,
+whpx, ...) or software-based (tcg). See this description of `supported
+accelerators<Accelerators>`.
+
+Board
+-----
+
+QEMU system defines board models for various architectures. It's a description
+of a SoC (system-on-chip) with various devices pre-configured, and can be
+selected with the option ``-machine`` of qemu-system.
+For virtual machines, you'll use ``virt`` board model, designed for this use
+case. As an example, for Arm architecture, you can find the `model code
+<https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/blob/master/hw/arm/virt.c>`_ and
+associated `documentation <arm-virt>`.
+
+Block
+-----
+
+Block drivers are the available `disk formats <block-drivers>` available, and
+block devices `(see Block device section on options page)<sec_005finvocation>`
+are using them to implement disks for a virtual machine.
+
+CFI
+---
+
+Control Flow Integrity is a hardening technique used to prevent exploits
+targeting QEMU by detecting unexpected branches during execution. QEMU `actively
+supports<cfi>` being compiled with CFI enabled.
+
+Device
+------
+
+QEMU is able to emulate a CPU, and all the hardware interacting with it,
+including many devices. When QEMU runs a virtual machine using a hardware-based
+accelerator, it is responsible for emulating, using software, all devices.
+
+EDK2
+----
+
+EDK2, as known as `TianoCore <https://www.tianocore.org/>`_, is an open source
+implementation of UEFI standard. It's ran by QEMU to support UEFI for virtual
+machines.
+
+gdbstub
+-------
+
+QEMU implements a `gdb server <GDB usage>`, allowing gdb to attach to it and
+debug a running virtual machine, or a program in user-mode. This allows to debug
+a given architecture without having access to hardware.
+
+glib2
+-----
+
+`GLib2 <https://docs.gtk.org/glib/>`_ is one of the most important library we
+are using through the codebase. It provides many data structures, macros, string
+and thread utilities and portable functions across different OS. It's required
+to build QEMU.
+
+Guest agent
+-----------
+
+`QEMU Guest agent <qemu-ga>` is a daemon intended to be executed by guest
+virtual machines and providing various services to help QEMU to interact with
+it.
+
+Guest/Host
+----------
+
+Guest is the architecture of the virtual machine, which is emulated.
+Host is the architecture on which QEMU is running on, which is native.
+
+Hypervisor
+----------
+
+The formal definition of an hypervisor is a program than can be used to manage a
+virtual machine. QEMU itself is an hypervisor.
+
+In the context of QEMU, an hypervisor is an API, provided by the Host OS,
+allowing to execute virtual machines. Linux implementation is KVM (and supports
+Xen as well). For MacOS, it's HVF. Windows defines WHPX. And NetBSD provides
+NVMM.
+
+Migration
+---------
+
+QEMU can save and restore the execution of a virtual machine, including across
+different machines. This is provided by the `Migration framework<migration>`.
+
+NBD
+---
+
+`QEMU Network Block Device server <qemu-nbd>` is a tool that can be used to
+mount and access QEMU images, providing functionality similar to a loop device.
+
+Mailing List
+------------
+
+This is `where <https://wiki.qemu.org/Contribute/MailingLists>`_ all the
+development happens! Changes are posted as series, that all developers can
+review and share feedback for.
+
+For reporting issues, our `GitLab
+<https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/issues>`_ tracker is the best place.
+
+MMU / softmmu
+-------------
+
+The Memory Management Unit is responsible for translating virtual addresses to
+physical addresses and managing memory protection. QEMU system mode is named
+"softmmu" precisely because it implements this in software, including a TLB
+(Translation lookaside buffer), for the guest virtual machine.
+
+QEMU user-mode does not implement a full software MMU, but "simply" translates
+virtual addresses by adding a specific offset, and relying on host MMU/OS
+instead.
+
+Monitor / QMP / HMP
+-------------------
+
+`QEMU Monitor <QEMU monitor>` is a text interface which can be used to interact
+with a running virtual machine.
+
+QMP stands for QEMU Monitor Protocol and is a json based interface.
+HMP stands for Human Monitor Protocol and is a set of text commands available
+for users who prefer natural language to json.
+
+MTTCG
+-----
+
+Multiple cpus support was first implemented using a round-robin algorithm
+running on a single thread. Later on, `Multi-threaded TCG <mttcg>` was developed
+to benefit from multiple cores to speed up execution.
+
+Plugins
+-------
+
+`TCG Plugins <TCG Plugins>` is an API used to instrument guest code, in system
+and user mode. The end goal is to have a similar set of functionality compared
+to `DynamoRIO <https://dynamorio.org/>`_ or `valgrind <https://valgrind.org/>`_.
+
+One key advantage of QEMU plugins is that they can be used to perform
+architecture agnostic instrumentation.
+
+Patchwork
+---------
+
+`Patchwork <https://patchew.org/QEMU/>`_ is a website that tracks
+patches on the Mailing List.
+
+PR
+--
+
+Once a series is reviewed and accepted by a subsystem maintainer, it will be
+included in a PR (Pull Request) that the project maintainer will merge into QEMU
+main branch, after running tests.
+
+QCOW
+----
+
+QEMU Copy On Write is a disk format developed by QEMU. It provides transparent
+compression, automatic extension, and many other advantages over a raw image.
+
+QEMU
+----
+
+`QEMU (Quick Emulator) <https://www.qemu.org/>`_ is a generic and open source
+machine emulator and virtualizer.
+
+QOM
+---
+
+`QEMU Object Model <qom>` is an object oriented API used to define various
+devices and hardware in the QEMU codebase.
+
+Record/replay
+-------------
+
+`Record/replay <replay>` is a feature of QEMU allowing to have a deterministic
+and reproducible execution of a virtual machine.
+
+Rust
+----
+
+`A new programming language <https://www.rust-lang.org/>`_, memory safe by
+default. We didn't see a more efficient way to create debates and tensions in
+a community of C programmers since the birth of C++.
+
+System mode
+-----------
+
+QEMU System mode emulates a full machine, including its cpu, memory and devices.
+It can be accelerated to hardware speed by using one of the hypervisors QEMU
+supports. It is referenced as softmmu as well.
+
+TCG
+---
+
+`Tiny Code Generator <tcg>` is an intermediate representation (IR) used to run
+guest instructions on host cpu, with both architectures possibly being
+different.
+
+It is one of the accelerator supported by QEMU, and supports a lot of
+guest/host architectures.
+
+User mode
+---------
+
+QEMU User mode allows to run programs for a guest architecture, on a host
+architecture, by translating system calls and using TCG. It is available for
+Linux and BSD.
+
+VirtIO
+------
+
+VirtIO is an open standard used to define and implement virtual devices with a
+minimal overhead, defining a set of data structures and hypercalls (similar to
+system calls, but targeting an hypervisor, which happens to be QEMU in our
+case). It's designed to be more efficient than emulating a real device, by
+minimizing the amount of interactions between a guest VM and its hypervisor.
+
+vhost-user
+----------
+
+`Vhost-user <vhost_user>` is an interface used to implement VirtIO devices
+outside of QEMU itself.
diff --git a/docs/index.rst b/docs/index.rst
index cb5e5098b65..2cad84cd77c 100644
--- a/docs/index.rst
+++ b/docs/index.rst
@@ -21,3 +21,4 @@ Welcome to QEMU's documentation!
    specs/index
    devel/index
    codebase/index
+   glossary/index
diff --git a/docs/system/arm/virt.rst b/docs/system/arm/virt.rst
index e67e7f0f7c5..11ceb898264 100644
--- a/docs/system/arm/virt.rst
+++ b/docs/system/arm/virt.rst
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+.. _arm-virt:
+
 'virt' generic virtual platform (``virt``)
 ==========================================
 
diff --git a/docs/system/images.rst b/docs/system/images.rst
index d000bd6b6f1..a5551173c97 100644
--- a/docs/system/images.rst
+++ b/docs/system/images.rst
@@ -82,4 +82,6 @@ VM snapshots currently have the following known limitations:
 -  A few device drivers still have incomplete snapshot support so their
    state is not saved or restored properly (in particular USB).
 
+.. _block-drivers:
+
 .. include:: qemu-block-drivers.rst.inc
diff --git a/docs/tools/qemu-nbd.rst b/docs/tools/qemu-nbd.rst
index 329f44d9895..4f21b7904ac 100644
--- a/docs/tools/qemu-nbd.rst
+++ b/docs/tools/qemu-nbd.rst
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+.. _qemu-nbd:
+
 =====================================
 QEMU Disk Network Block Device Server
 =====================================
-- 
2.39.5