Kernel-based Virtual Machine

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Kernel-based Virtual Machine
Latest release 69 / May 19, 2008
Written in C
OS Linux kernel
Genre Virtualization
License GNU General Public License or GNU Lesser General Public License
Website http://kvm.qumranet.com/kvmwiki

Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a Linux kernel virtualization infrastructure. KVM currently supports full virtualization using Intel VT or AMD-V. Limited support for paravirtualization is also available for Linux guests and Windows in the form of a paravirtual network driver[1], a balloon driver to affect operation of the guest virtual memory manager[2], and CPU optimization for Linux guests. KVM is currently implemented as a loadable kernel module although future versions will likely use a system call interface and be integrated directly into the kernel[3].

Architecture ports are currently being developed for s390[4], PowerPC[5], and IA64. The first version of KVM was included in Linux 2.6.20 (February of 2007). KVM is also being ported to FreeBSD.[6]

A wide variety of guest operating systems work with KVM, including many flavours of Linux, BSD, Solaris, Windows, Haiku, ReactOS and AROS Research Operating System.[7]

By itself, KVM does not perform any emulation. Instead, a user-space program uses the /dev/kvm interface to set up the guest VM's address space, feed it simulated I/O and map its video display back onto the host's. Currently, the only such program that does this is a modified version of QEMU.

KVM's parts are licensed under various GNU licenses[8]:

  • KVM kernel module: GPL v2
  • KVM user module: LGPL v2
  • QEMU virtual CPU core library (libqemu.a) and QEMU PC system emulator: LGPL
  • Linux user mode QEMU emulator: GPL
  • BIOS files (bios.bin, vgabios.bin and vgabios-cirrus.bin): LGPL v2 or later

KVM is maintained by Avi Kivity and is funded primarily by Qumranet, a technology start up.[9]

Contents

[edit] Graphical Management Tools

Virtual Machine Manager supports creating, editing, starting, and stopping KVM based virtual machines.

[edit] See also

Free software Portal

[edit] References

  1. ^ Gmane - Mail To News And Back Again
  2. ^ 3.2 Ballooning
  3. ^ Gmane - Mail To News And Back Again
  4. ^ Gmane - Mail To News And Back Again
  5. ^ Gmane Loom
  6. ^ Porting Linux KVM to FreeBSD
  7. ^ KVM wiki: Guest support status.
  8. ^ Licensing info from Ubuntu 7.04 /usr/share/doc/kvm/copyright
  9. ^ Interview: Avi Kivity on KernelTrap

[edit] External links

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