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How Intel Virtualisation Works

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Re: How Intel Virtualisation Works

#31

Post by bytefire »

ceautery wrote: post #25

Since Intel chips are really RISC underneath the hood, I wonder what crazy x86 emulation hoops they have to jump through already.

good point. may be the central idea of how it's implemented isn't too bad: i see hypervisor as a sort of OS kernel for VMs and the transitions from VM to hypervisor - VM exits - akin to syscalls. of course there is more but the above analogy is the basic idea and other things get added along the way

Re: How Intel Virtualisation Works

#32

Post by bytefire »

userbinator wrote: post #29
bytefire wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hi userbinator :) isn't the purpose of virtual 8086 mode somewhat different? i.e. to run real mode applications while the cpu is in protected mode? or did you mean that virtual 8086 could be generalised into a wider virtualisation system?

or did you mean at virtual 8086 could be generalised into a wider virtualisation system? Yes, if you look at the way V86 is implemented, it wouldn't be too hard to extend it to full virtualisation --- something like a "VMX mode task" would've been ideal.

i see, makes sense. may be a different team from V86 worked on it? Conways law :)
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