Feature #154
Support HVM (working towards PVHVM)
| Status: | New | Start: | 2017-02-17 | |
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| Priority: | Normal | Due date: | ||
| Assigned to: | - | % Done: | 0% |
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| Category: | - | |||
| Target version: | - | |||
| Votes: | 2 |
Description
Running dom0 servers configured to allow guests in HVM mode may be desirable because:
- It's simpler for guests (requires no PV modifications, but benefits from any PV driver support)
- Allow for more guest types, i.e. non-Linux ones
- Allegedly higher performance for 64-bit guests (untested)
More info on some of the differences: http://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2014-05-07/what-color-is-your-xen.html
A downside is that HVM is more complicated as it requires use of qemu, and historically there have been quite a few security issues in qemu that we have dodged due to only supporting PV guests. As a result I would expect enforced reboots due to security patching to be a lot more common. We would most likely segregate PV and HVM guests onto different hosts so that those remaining on PV would not experience the additional security reboots.