Yes, we belong to the Operating System Engineering Research Center in China. Any message or advice is welcome. Currently, Luvalley is just an infant. We will do our best to make it grow if it is valuable and interesting. Thanks for your attention. Best regards, Xiaodong 2009/3/26 Sheng Yang <sheng@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>: > On Thursday 26 March 2009 11:56:20 Jun Koi wrote: >> Very cool! Who is behind this project? Intel? > > Not us... > > According to http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-promo/2009- > February/000402.html, it is "the Operating System Engineering Research Center > in China." > > -- > regards > Yang, Sheng > >> >> I will give it a try! >> >> Thanks, >> Jun >> >> On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 12:20 PM, Xiaodong Yi <xdong.yi@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> > Luvalley is a Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) spawned from the KVM >> > project. Its part of source codes are derived from KVM to virtualize >> > CPU instructions and memory management unit (MMU). However, its >> > overall architecture is completely different from KVM, but somewhat >> > like Xen. Luvalley runs outside of Linux, just like Xen's >> > architecture, but it still uses Linux as its scheduler, memory >> > manager, physical device driver provider and virtual IO device >> > emulator. Moreover, Luvalley may run WITHOUT Linux. In theory, any >> > operating system could take the place of Linux to provide the above >> > services. Currently, Luvalley supports Linux and Windows. That is to >> > say, one may run Luvalley to boot a Linux or Windows, and then run >> > multiple virtualized operating systems on such Linux or Windows. >> > >> > If you are interested in Luvalley project, you may download the source >> > codes from >> > http://sourceforge.net/projects/luvalley/ >> > >> > The following is more details about Luvalley. >> > >> > Luvalley is an external hypervisor, just like Xen >> > (http://www.xen.org). It boots and controls the X86 machine before >> > starting up any operating system. However, Luvalley is much smaller >> > and simpler than Xen. Most jobs of Xen, such as scheduling, memory >> > management, interrupt management, etc, are shifted to Linux (or any >> > other OS), which is running on top of Luvalley. >> > >> > Luvalley gets booted first when the X86 machine is power on. It boots >> > up all CPUs in SMP system and enables their virtualization extensions. >> > Then the MBR (Master Boot Record) is read out and executed in CPU's >> > virtualization mode. Following this way, a Linux (or any other OS) >> > will be booted up at last. Luvalley assigns all physical memory, >> > programmable interrupt controller (PIC) and IO devices to this >> > priviledged OS. Following Xen, we call this OS as "domain 0" (dom0) >> > OS. >> > >> > Like KVM, a modified Qemu is running on dom0 Linux to provide virtual >> > IO devices for other operating systems running on top of Luvalley. We >> > also follow Xen to call these operating systems "domain user" (domU). >> > That is to say, there must be exact one dom0 OS and may be several >> > domU OSs running on top of Luvalley. Each domU OS corresponds to a >> > Qemu process in dom0 OS. The memory of domU is allocated from dom0 by >> > Qemu. And when Qemu is scheduled to run by dom0 Scheduler, it will >> > call Luvalley to run the corresponding domU. >> > >> > Moreover, as Luvalley requires nothing from the dom0 Linux kernel, >> > other operating systems such as Windows, FreeBSD, etc can also serve >> > as dom0 OS, provided that Qemu can be ported to these operating >> > systems. Since Qemu is an userland application and is able to cross >> > platform, such porting is feasible. Currently, we have added the >> > Luvalley support into Qemu-0.10.0, which can be compiled and run in >> > Windows. With the help of Luvalley, Qemu-0.10.0 runs much faster >> > becuase it could utilize the VT support provided by Intel CPU. >> > >> > In summary, Luvalley inherited all merits from KVM. Especially, >> > Luvalley is very small and simple. It is even more easy-to-use than >> > KVM because it does not depend on specific Linux kernel version. Every >> > version of Linux can serve as Luvalley's dom0 OS, except that Qemu >> > cannot run on it. >> > >> > In addition, we think Luvalley's architecture meets the demand on both >> > desktop and server operating system area: >> > >> > 1. In the desktop area, there are many kinds of operating systems >> > runing on various hardwares and devices. In theory, it is rather easy >> > to add virtualization ability for all kinds of operating systems, >> > without sacrificing the hardware compatibility and the user >> > experience. Moreover, Luvalley is very easy to install. It requires >> > only a boot loader which supports Multiboot Specification, e.g., Grub, >> > WinGrub (http://sourceforge.net/projects/grub4dos), etc. >> > >> > 2. In the server area, especially for large-scale server systems (for >> > example, throusands of CPUs), a single Linux is not suitable to manage >> > the whole system. Therefore, KVM cannot be used properly. Luvalley's >> > architecture is more suitable for servers. For example, it can be used >> > to divide physical resources to partitions, and run a Linux for each >> > partition. In addition, Luvalley is very small and may be put into >> > BIOS to serve as a virtulization firmware. >> > -- >> > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kvm" in >> > the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >> > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html >> >> -- >> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kvm" in >> the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >> More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html > > > -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kvm" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
