v44.0

This release has been tracked in our [roadmap
project](https://github.com/orgs/cloud-hypervisor/projects/6) as iteration
v44.0. The following user visible changes have been made:

Configurable `virtio-iommu` Address Width
-----------------------------------------

The `iommu_address_width` option has been added to `--platform` to allow users
to limit the `virtio-iommu` address space in the guest. (#6900)

Notable Performance Improvements
--------------------------------

The `VIRTIO_BLK_F_SEG_MAX` feature has been enabled for `virtio-block` devices,
which brings significant performance improvements on throughput. (#6885)

The `io_uring` entries are no longer forced to use async helper workers,
delegating the decision to the kernel. This change resolved the issue of having
excessive amount of worker threads when `io_uring` is being used, which is
expected to improve performance, such as reducing memory usage and reduce CPU
contention.

New Fuzzers
-----------

Our continuous fuzzing infrastructure is augmented with two new fuzzers to cover
x86 instruction emulator and `virtio-vsock`.

Notable Bug Fixes
-----------------

* Fix short read and short write that impact QCOW and VHDX support. (#6884)
* Various bug fixes on VHDX support. (#6890, #6899)

Contributors
------------

Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to our release:

* Arvind Vasudev <avasudev@crusoeenergy.com>
* Bo Chen <bo.arvin.chen@gmail.com>
* Nikolay Edigaryev <edigaryev@gmail.com>
* Rob Bradford <rbradford@rivosinc.com>
* Ruoqing He <heruoqing@iscas.ac.cn>
* Wei Liu <liuwe@microsoft.com>