Hardware and Software Support for Virtualization
by Edouard Bugnion, Jason Nieh, Dan Tsafrir · first published 2017
8mentions
5recommended by
7HN commenters
2019–2026first – last mentioned
71% recommend29% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Explains how hardware and software cooperate to run virtual machines, covering modern CPU support and older techniques like VMware's trap-and-binary-translate approach. Suggested for engineers new to virtualization.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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Have you read Edouard Bugnion’s book? “Hardware and Software Support for Virtualization”. It explains the modern techniques as well as VMware’s trap-and-binary translate hack (using segment truncation) which remains IMO one of the greatest underappreciated achievements in the industry, considering…
on “Intel Virtualisation: How VT-X, KVM and QEMU Work Together” ↗I work on virtual machines at Google. I usually suggest "Hardware and Software Support for Virtualization" [1] to new team members without a virtualization background. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Hardware-Software-Virtualization-Synt...
on “QEMU Internals” ↗…VMCALL and VMEXIT instructions. And then you have a handler in your vmexit table, which is exactly like a syscall table. So if(exitreason == CPUID_EXIT) cpuid_handler(); For a good book you can look up "Hardware and software support for virtualization" https://www.amazon.com/Hardware-Software-Virtualization-Synt... . It's honestly the only good resource i've found on what really makes this work.
on “QEMU 6.2” ↗…when you transition between those two indicates a failing by your coworkers/mentors. I encourage people I work with to read many of the books in this book series. I particularly encourage them to read “Hardware and Software Support for Virtualization”, since it’s basically a book on their job.
on “Myths Programmers Believe about CPU Caches (2018)” ↗The sibling's comment book recommendation "Hardware and Software Support for Virtualization" book is on point and it's written by one of the co-founders of VMware. Another book on Libvirt will be handy since it is the de facto API for most virtualization including VMs and containers[1]. [1]https://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Libvirt-Development-Maint...
on “QEMU Internals” ↗FYI, Edouard Bugnion one of co-founders of VMware has written a book on VM technology "Hardware and Software Support for Virtualization"[1]. [1]https://research.vmware.com/publications/hardware-and-softwa...
on “Write Your Own Virtual Machine” ↗…sets. Those requirements and their different jargon from the mainframe world were re-discovered from the literature when virtualization in the PC world became a selling point. (Edouard Bugnion et. al. - Hardware and Software Support for Virtualization)
on “A Recursive Algorithm to Render Signed Distance Fields” ↗Hardware and Software Support for Virtualization Synthesis Lectures on Computer Architecture (2017) https://www.morganclaypool.com/doi/abs/10.2200/S00754ED1V01Y... Bringing Virtualization to the x86 Architecture with the Original VMware Workstation…
on “QEMU Internals” ↗