Open source KVM hypervisor for MIPS32 processors
Embedded system designers are becoming increasingly interested in virtualization for a variety of reasons, including security, fault-isolation, legacy software support (migrating to multi-core), and flexibility in resource provisioning. A common application for embedded virtualization today is in mobile phones, smart digital televisions and set-top boxes, where trusted and secure applications share the platform with third party and untrusted applications.
The KVM is a fast and secure open source framework that brings full virtualization to Linux and has become the favored virtualization solution of the Linux kernel community. It enables multiple operating system instances to run securely on a single processor. KVM consists of a loadable kernel module, and so is a natural fit for Linux-based systems that need virtualization.
The KVM/MIPS hypervisor supports all MIPS32 processors and platforms, including those that do not implement virtualization hardware support. "While most embedded virtualization solutions use para-virtualization, KVM/MIPS uses trap and emulate to securely execute guest code," said Sanjay Lal, Co-Founder of Kyma Systems. This approach has the advantage of requiring minimal changes to the guest kernel. “We’ve limited the changes to the Linux guest to less than 10 lines of code and use advanced techniques like run-time binary translation to minimize the number of traps and greatly improve performance."
“We are pleased to see support for MIPS in the popular KVM hypervisor. This is yet another step in the continued growth of the broad ecosystem around the MIPS architecture. We’re impressed with Kyma Systems’ technology, as its solution enables efficient virtualization on unmodified MIPS CPUs with only minimal changes to the kernel,” said Gideon Intrater, vice president of marketing at MIPS Technologies.
The KVM/MIPS hypervisor will be submitted to the open source community in the fourth quarter of 2012.
kymasys.com.
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