[$] Using the KVM API

Many developers, users, and entire industries rely on virtualization, as provided by software like Xen, QEMU/KVM, or kvmtool. While QEMU can run a software-based virtual machine, and Xen can run cooperating paravirtualized OSes without hardware support, most current uses and deployments of virtualization rely on hardware-accelerated virtualization, as provided on many modern hardware platforms. Linux supports hardware virtualization via the Kernel Virtual Machine (KVM) API. In this article, we'll take a closer look at the KVM API, using it to directly set up a virtual machine without using any existing virtual machine implementation.

Subscribers can click below for guest author Josh Triplett's look at the API from this week's Kernel page.