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1 | Rusty's Remarkably Unreliable Guide to Lguest | ||
2 | - or, A Young Coder's Illustrated Hypervisor | ||
3 | http://lguest.ozlabs.org | ||
4 | |||
5 | Lguest is designed to be a minimal hypervisor for the Linux kernel, for | ||
6 | Linux developers and users to experiment with virtualization with the | ||
7 | minimum of complexity. Nonetheless, it should have sufficient | ||
8 | features to make it useful for specific tasks, and, of course, you are | ||
9 | encouraged to fork and enhance it. | ||
10 | |||
11 | Features: | ||
12 | |||
13 | - Kernel module which runs in a normal kernel. | ||
14 | - Simple I/O model for communication. | ||
15 | - Simple program to create new guests. | ||
16 | - Logo contains cute puppies: http://lguest.ozlabs.org | ||
17 | |||
18 | Developer features: | ||
19 | |||
20 | - Fun to hack on. | ||
21 | - No ABI: being tied to a specific kernel anyway, you can change anything. | ||
22 | - Many opportunities for improvement or feature implementation. | ||
23 | |||
24 | Running Lguest: | ||
25 | |||
26 | - Lguest runs the same kernel as guest and host. You can configure | ||
27 | them differently, but usually it's easiest not to. | ||
28 | |||
29 | You will need to configure your kernel with the following options: | ||
30 | |||
31 | CONFIG_HIGHMEM64G=n ("High Memory Support" "64GB")[1] | ||
32 | CONFIG_TUN=y/m ("Universal TUN/TAP device driver support") | ||
33 | CONFIG_EXPERIMENTAL=y ("Prompt for development and/or incomplete code/drivers") | ||
34 | CONFIG_PARAVIRT=y ("Paravirtualization support (EXPERIMENTAL)") | ||
35 | CONFIG_LGUEST=y/m ("Linux hypervisor example code") | ||
36 | |||
37 | and I recommend: | ||
38 | CONFIG_HZ=100 ("Timer frequency")[2] | ||
39 | |||
40 | - A tool called "lguest" is available in this directory: type "make" | ||
41 | to build it. If you didn't build your kernel in-tree, use "make | ||
42 | O=<builddir>". | ||
43 | |||
44 | - Create or find a root disk image. There are several useful ones | ||
45 | around, such as the xm-test tiny root image at | ||
46 | http://xm-test.xensource.com/ramdisks/initrd-1.1-i386.img | ||
47 | |||
48 | For more serious work, I usually use a distribution ISO image and | ||
49 | install it under qemu, then make multiple copies: | ||
50 | |||
51 | dd if=/dev/zero of=rootfile bs=1M count=2048 | ||
52 | qemu -cdrom image.iso -hda rootfile -net user -net nic -boot d | ||
53 | |||
54 | - "modprobe lg" if you built it as a module. | ||
55 | |||
56 | - Run an lguest as root: | ||
57 | |||
58 | Documentation/lguest/lguest 64m vmlinux --tunnet=192.168.19.1 --block=rootfile root=/dev/lgba | ||
59 | |||
60 | Explanation: | ||
61 | 64m: the amount of memory to use. | ||
62 | |||
63 | vmlinux: the kernel image found in the top of your build directory. You | ||
64 | can also use a standard bzImage. | ||
65 | |||
66 | --tunnet=192.168.19.1: configures a "tap" device for networking with this | ||
67 | IP address. | ||
68 | |||
69 | --block=rootfile: a file or block device which becomes /dev/lgba | ||
70 | inside the guest. | ||
71 | |||
72 | root=/dev/lgba: this (and anything else on the command line) are | ||
73 | kernel boot parameters. | ||
74 | |||
75 | - Configuring networking. I usually have the host masquerade, using | ||
76 | "iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE" and "echo 1 > | ||
77 | /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward". In this example, I would configure | ||
78 | eth0 inside the guest at 192.168.19.2. | ||
79 | |||
80 | Another method is to bridge the tap device to an external interface | ||
81 | using --tunnet=bridge:<bridgename>, and perhaps run dhcp on the guest | ||
82 | to obtain an IP address. The bridge needs to be configured first: | ||
83 | this option simply adds the tap interface to it. | ||
84 | |||
85 | A simple example on my system: | ||
86 | |||
87 | ifconfig eth0 0.0.0.0 | ||
88 | brctl addbr lg0 | ||
89 | ifconfig lg0 up | ||
90 | brctl addif lg0 eth0 | ||
91 | dhclient lg0 | ||
92 | |||
93 | Then use --tunnet=bridge:lg0 when launching the guest. | ||
94 | |||
95 | See http://linux-net.osdl.org/index.php/Bridge for general information | ||
96 | on how to get bridging working. | ||
97 | |||
98 | - You can also create an inter-guest network using | ||
99 | "--sharenet=<filename>": any two guests using the same file are on | ||
100 | the same network. This file is created if it does not exist. | ||
101 | |||
102 | Lguest I/O model: | ||
103 | |||
104 | Lguest uses a simplified DMA model plus shared memory for I/O. Guests | ||
105 | can communicate with each other if they share underlying memory | ||
106 | (usually by the lguest program mmaping the same file), but they can | ||
107 | use any non-shared memory to communicate with the lguest process. | ||
108 | |||
109 | Guests can register DMA buffers at any key (must be a valid physical | ||
110 | address) using the LHCALL_BIND_DMA(key, dmabufs, num<<8|irq) | ||
111 | hypercall. "dmabufs" is the physical address of an array of "num" | ||
112 | "struct lguest_dma": each contains a used_len, and an array of | ||
113 | physical addresses and lengths. When a transfer occurs, the | ||
114 | "used_len" field of one of the buffers which has used_len 0 will be | ||
115 | set to the length transferred and the irq will fire. | ||
116 | |||
117 | Using an irq value of 0 unbinds the dma buffers. | ||
118 | |||
119 | To send DMA, the LHCALL_SEND_DMA(key, dma_physaddr) hypercall is used, | ||
120 | and the bytes used is written to the used_len field. This can be 0 if | ||
121 | noone else has bound a DMA buffer to that key or some other error. | ||
122 | DMA buffers bound by the same guest are ignored. | ||
123 | |||
124 | Cheers! | ||
125 | Rusty Russell rusty@rustcorp.com.au. | ||
126 | |||
127 | [1] These are on various places on the TODO list, waiting for you to | ||
128 | get annoyed enough at the limitation to fix it. | ||
129 | [2] Lguest is not yet tickless when idle. See [1]. | ||