kvm : the Linux Virtual Machine Monitor

Virtualization is a hot topic in operating systems these days. It is useful in many scenarios: server consolida-tion, virtual test environments, and for Linux enthusiasts who still can not decide which distribution is best. Re-cently, hardware vendors of commodity x86 processors have added virtualization extensions to the instruction set that can be utilized to write relatively simple virtual machine monitors. The Kernel-based Virtual Machine, or kvm, is a new Linux subsystem which leverages these virtualization extensions to add a virtual machine monitor (or hyper-visor) capability to Linux. Using kvm, one can create and run multiple virtual machines. These virtual ma-chines appear as normal Linux processes and integrate seamlessly with the rest of the system. 1