christasa/trivial-kvm

a very tiny kvm

A Minimal KVM prototype

tkvm is a minimal VMM which can run a very simple VM and can run a whole operation system in the future. It uses KVM API to simulate a VM. It is a learning project contemporarly.

Steps

Learning of tkvm can be divided into 4 steps:

• Build a prototype of KVM API usage
• Accomplish the part of Memory set
• Accomplish the part of load kernel boot and initrd
• Accomplish the part of CPU

Example

Run the tkvm and then run the command

./tkvm -kernel image/bzImage -initrd image/initramfs-busybox-x86.cpio.gz

Build your own Linux image

• https://mgalgs.io/2015/05/16/how-to-build-a-custom-linux-kernel-for-qemu-2015-edition.html

Notice: If you need to build the KVM acceleration kernel, change the command make kvmconfig to make kvm_guest.config. Reference: https://www.mail-archive.com/linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org/msg2140886.html

You may need to re-run the programme many time for successfully get the terminal. Only for x86 structure yet.

Relevant notes

• kvmtool阅读笔记(一) | 通用结构体&函数执行概括
• kvmtool阅读笔记(二) | 内存初始化
• kvmtool阅读笔记(三) | Linux内核加载
• kvmtool阅读笔记(四) | 设置BIOS
• kvmtool阅读笔记(五) | 终端&Console初始化

Reference

• https://github.com/kvmtool/kvmtool
• Inside the Linux Virtualization Principle and Implementation