Re: Paravirt KVM capabilities

[Avi Kivity <avi-atKUWr5tajBWk0Htik3J/w@public.gmane.org>]

Hugo Mills wrote:
>    I'm a little unclear on the capabilities (current or planned) of
> the new paravirtualisation feature in KVM.
>
>    Does running paravirtual guests on KVM still require a
> hardware-VM-capable processor, or will it eventually be possible to
> run a paravirtualised Linux on an older machine (such as, say, a
> first-generation Athlon 64)?
>   

If the code comes in to support it, and if it doesn't hurt full hardware 
virtualization, kvm can be extended to support it.  I have no plans to 
work on it myself but will review and accept patches.

It's also something for the Linux community in general to decide:  if we 
want separate interfaces for paravirtualization and full virtualization 
(lhype and kvm) or a merged interface.  I can see arguments in favor of 
both positions.

>    As a follow-up question, would it be possible then to run a 32-bit
> guest on a 64-bit host?

That is possible now, and hopefully will continue to be possible.

-- 
error compiling committee.c: too many arguments to function


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