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VirtualBox KVM Public Release

cyberus-technology.de

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Re: VirtualBox KVM Public Release

#131

Post by photonbeam »

eek2121 wrote: post #123
eVeechu7 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought virt manager was ok but honestly your complaints about it are specific and fair.

Virtual box has graphical configuration for a ton of different options. It also “just works” in many cases and is relatively easy to use. I am surprised the open source community has not built better gui tools, and no project, closed or open has made configuring pcie passthrough easy. I have always wanted to be able to run Windows in a virtualized session with my GPU for gaming, and use my onboard APU for the Linux h…

I wish there was a port of UTM to linux

Re: VirtualBox KVM Public Release

#133

Post by tyfon »

blitzclone wrote: post #73
madushan1000 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really curious about this, is it gpu para-virtualization or actual VFIO requiring built in support from the gpu hardware?

We have used this with recent Intel GPUs that support SR-IOV. This is what you see in the video on the cyberus website. Intel hasn't managed to upstream the drivers for this yet and you have to piece together things, which is very unpleasant. But we are there to help, if someone wants to use this in a professional setting. We used to have support for Intel GVT-g GPU virtualization as well, which was more of a softwar…

I wonder if it would be possible to use DXVK here for windows guests to play those unruly games. That is have a pass through direct x driver in windows that sends all the commands to dxvk which either sends the image back to the vm or renders directly on the screen.

Re: VirtualBox KVM Public Release

#134

Post by stevemk14ebr »

flo123456 wrote: post #113
polski-g wrote: post #97

Why? How does this generate revenue for CyberusTech? What is the long term goal?

Those are good questions. I don’t understand why you were downvoted. To answer: We are offering service contracts and contract engineering services around virtualization, KVM and a couple of other topics. The long term goal for this specific project is to support the security goals our customers have and to enable a couple of KVM features in Virtualbox as well. We plan to keep this updated with upstream Virtualbox an…

Please upstream this code. That ensures this work will live forever with better maintenance without you all having to chase upstream vbox AND will be easier to justify use if it's an included vbox component. I would find it difficult to justify using this to my bosses "lets just go use this custom fork of vbox" isn't going to fly for most.

Re: VirtualBox KVM Public Release

#135

Post by gonzodaruler »

dijit wrote: post #129
WhyNotHugo wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t use virtualbox’s kernel module and kvm at the same time. This basically means that you can’t use virtualbox and qemu at the same time. If you use virtualbox with this new backend, you can use it concurrently with qemu (and a few other virtualisation tools). KVM is also part of Linux itself, so there’s a lot less haste with setting it up.

virtualbox drivers are/were a constant source of kernel panics on MacOS and Linux too, so that should not be underestimated. IIRC they also disabled ASLR kernel wide. Additionally, and perhaps less important: USB3 is a commercial feature of virtualbox, there are stories of companies getting C&D letters (or Audits/Invoices) from Oracle because a developer had installed the virtualbox extensions..

Starting with VirtualBox 7, USB3 no longer requires the commercial extension pack but is part of the OSE release. See https://github.com/cyberus-technology/virtualbox-kvm/blob/de...

Re: VirtualBox KVM Public Release

#136

Post by stevemk14ebr »

blitzclone wrote: post #58
znpy wrote: post #51

Honest questions: How does this work in licensing terms? If VB foss enough? Do you expect Oracle to merge this? If oracle doesn’t merge this, will you keep on maintaining it, potentially forking VirtualBox?

>How does this work in licensing terms? If VB foss enough? It's as FOSS as the VirtualBox open source edition. > Do you expect Oracle to merge this? That would be nice, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Oracle gonna Oracle. > If oracle doesn’t merge this, will you keep on maintaining it, potentially forking VirtualBox? We don't intend to fork VirtualBox. VBox has a somewhat modular architecture where you can plug-in dif…

This would be useful for anyone who needs to run bleeding edge linux kernels. Most other hypervisors have poor support when you're pinned to testing distros (For security reasons). KVM and virt-manager are uh not exactly user friendly, so being able to use the KVM backend and always be compatible with the new kernels while having the UX and UI of vbox is actually a very huge deal. This is one of the main reasons I really really hope you all manage to upstream this.

I built and tried this, it worked great, so excellent work there. I found the processor CPU core counts being grayed out unpleasant, it's not clear to me how I am supposed to adjust my core and ram values now, maybe document this?

Re: VirtualBox KVM Public Release

#137

Post by ComputerGuru »

monocasa wrote: post #127
ComputerGuru wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “original” UML is/was, I believe, NetBSD running as a “rump kernel” and something that virtualization of the actual kernel does not, directly and on its own, fill the shoes of.

UML is older than NetBSD rump kernels.

I stand corrected.

Re: VirtualBox KVM Public Release

#138

Post by dschuetz »

VirtualBox, as absurd as it is, needs a proprietary, licensed "extension pack" for basic things like today standard USB2/3 drivers, encryption and webcam. I don't care about backends as long VirtualBox frontend has "Oracle" slapped on it. So, kudos! for perpetuating Virtualbox' existence!

Re: VirtualBox KVM Public Release

#139

Post by gonzodaruler »

dschuetz wrote: post #138

VirtualBox, as absurd as it is, needs a proprietary, licensed "extension pack" for basic things like today standard USB2/3 drivers, encryption and webcam. I don't care about backends as long VirtualBox frontend has "Oracle" slapped on it. So, kudos! for perpetuating Virtualbox' existence!

A lot of this has changed in recent VirtualBox versions. USB3 and Webcam support is now part of the OSE release.

Re: VirtualBox KVM Public Release

#140

Post by parthy »

stevemk14ebr wrote: post #136
blitzclone wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How does this work in licensing terms? If VB foss enough? It's as FOSS as the VirtualBox open source edition. > Do you expect Oracle to merge this? That would be nice, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Oracle gonna Oracle. > If oracle doesn’t merge this, will you keep on maintaining it, potentially forking VirtualBox? We don't intend to fork VirtualBox. VBox has a somewhat modular architecture where you can plug-in dif…

This would be useful for anyone who needs to run bleeding edge linux kernels. Most other hypervisors have poor support when you're pinned to testing distros (For security reasons). KVM and virt-manager are uh not exactly user friendly, so being able to use the KVM backend and always be compatible with the new kernels while having the UX and UI of vbox is actually a very huge deal. This is one of the main reasons I re…

That's odd about the core count. I only get that behavior if my host system only has 1 CPU to begin with (tested in qemu/KVM with nesting). Could you comment on your host system parameters a bit?
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