KernelTrap - Avi Kivity

Quote: Today's New kvm Architecture

Jeremy — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 20:46:38 +0000

"Today's new kvm architecture is ia64, aka Itanium 2. Like s390, it is only provided in the git tree, not in the tarball. Windows and Linux guests are supported."

Quote: The Big Item (In More Ways Than One)

Jeremy — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 21:03:17 +0000

"The big item (in more ways than one) for this release is the addition of s390 support. As it is not actually provided in the tarball, you will need to use git to fetch it. You will also need a mainframe."

2.6.25 KVM Updates

Jeremy — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 05:19:44 +0000

Avi Kivity summarized the kvm patches bound for the 2.6.25 kernel:

"Changes include performance and scalability improvements, completion of the portability work (though no new architectures are supported with this submission), support for new hardware features, using general userspace memory for kvm (which enables swapping guest memory as well as sharing memory among guests), as well as the usual cleanups and incremental fixes."

The Kernel-based Virtual Machine project, kvm, was started in mid-2006, and has been part of the Linux kernel since the 2.6.20 release in February of 2007. The recent changes can be browsed with gitweb.

Quote: You Must Be Planning To Live Forever

Jeremy — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 22:24:59 +0000

"Do we really need 128-bit time? You must be planning to live forever."

Merge Window KVM Updates

Jeremy — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 14:35:13 +0000

Avi Kivitiy posted numerous KVM updates which Linus Torvalds merged into his mainline kernel source tree to be included in the upcoming 2.6.24 kernel. Avi summarized:

"Highlights include in-kernel pic/lapic/ioapic emulation, improved guest support, preemptibility, an improved x86 emulator, and a fair amount of cleanup.

"The changes outside drivers/kvm/ and include/linux/kvm*.h fix the CR8 mask definition (which is not otherwise used in the kernel) and expose some ioapic register definitions even if ioapic support is not compiled in. The diff is appended below."

Linux: KVM Adds Support For SMP Guests

Jeremy — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 15:15:21 +0000

A recently merged KVM patchset included support for guest SMP, various performance improvements, and suspend/resume fixes. KVM stands for Kernel-based Virtual Machine, "a full virtualization solution for Linux on x86 hardware containing virtualization extensions". In regards to the recently merged guest SMP support which will be part of the upcoming 2.6.23 kernel, Avi Kivity noted:

"Guest smp is fully operational. Kernel build on 2-way smp is 40% faster than on a up guest. Expect significant performance improvements from in-kernel apic and from further tuning."

Linux: Improved KVM Performance, Vista Support

Jeremy — Sun, 06 May 2007 13:31:12 +0000

Avi Kivity [interview] announced significant performance improvements and support for running 32-bit Windows Vista as a guest within the latest release of KVM. Originally merged into the 2.6.20 mainline Linux kernel [story], KVM stands for Kernel-based Virtual Machine, "a full virtualization solution for Linux on x86 hardware containing virtualization extensions". Regarding the new release, Avi announced:

"The happy theme of today's kvm is the significant performance improvements, brought to you by a growing team of developers. I've clocked kbuild at within 25% of native. This release also introduces support for 32-bit Windows Vista."