How, in general, does one determine if a PC supports hardware virtualization? I use VirtualPC to set up parallel test environments and I'd enjoy a bit of a speed boost.
Download this: http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php
Also check, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_virtualization
Edit: Additional, I know it's for XEN but the instructions are the same for all VMs that want hardware support. http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/HVM_Compatible_Processors
I can't try it from work, but I'm sure it can identify whether you've got the Intel VT or AMD-V instructions. Intel will have a "vmx" instruction and AMD will have a "svm".
On linux you can check /proc/cpuinfo, "egrep '(vmx|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo"
The first thing is to run VPC, open Options, and see if the HW virtualization option is available.
If it isn't you may still have it. Many machines have HW virtualization disabled in the BIOS. If you believe this is the case you'll need to confirm with your processor mfg that MW virtualization is supported, then find out from your BIOS mfg how to enable that feature.
#Nick what processor do you have?
Try cpu-z or SecurAble on windows or on linux, cat /proc/cpuinfo and look for the flags: vmx (Intel) or svm (AMD)
All of those will tell you if the hardware supports it, but as others said it must be enabled in the BIOS. (But checking first will avoid an unnecessary reboot...)
Try just turning the option on in VirtualPC. If it doesn't do anything (or the option isn't available), then your PC doesn't.
Try just turning the option on in VirtualPC. If it doesn't do anything (or the option isn't available), then your PC doesn't.
Some PC's require a BIOS setting to be turned on in order for this option to be enabled. I couldn't find that BIOS setting on my machine, but then again there are a lot of options to comb through. Presumably this is a CPU or motherboard chipset feature, so there must be a list of CPU's that support it.
You can take a look in the BIOS of the machine. It indicates if the machine supports hardware virtualization.
You can run programs like virtual pc even if you machine does not support HW virtualization, but if the machine supports it the program take advantage of this extensions.
Your processor does NOT support hardware-assisted virtualization, but as others have said you can still run virtualization tools.
http://www.intel.com/products/processor_number/chart/pentium_d.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_virtualization
first place I'd check
Related
I am trying to install android studio in my ubuntu system.But when I open the AVD manager it shows following warning message
after searching on internet I understand that I need to goto bios setup->advanced->intel virtualization technology(enable it if it is disabled),
but I can't find intel virtualization technology option in my bios setup.
bios menu
how can I solve this issue?
It seems that your board doesn't support VT-x. You are looking at the right spot I beleive. I must say, it has been a long time since I've seen such a board.
Have you correctly checked if your board supports VT-x ? Best way to find out is to check the specs of your computer/motherboard online.
Keep us posted, and good luck,
Clovel
EDIT : AMD-V / AMD IOMMU
It seems here that for AMD processors, the option you are looking for is AMD-V (VT-x counterpart) & AMD IOMMU (VTd counterpart ?). See if you can enable either one of these options in Advanced -> CPU Options
What is the distinction between emulation and Full Virtualization, also called Hardware-assisted virtualizion (HVM)?
From this source, it is not clear what the relationship is.
Full Virtualization or Hardware-assisted virtualizion (HVM) uses
virtualization extensions from the host CPU to virtualize guests. HVM
requires Intel VT or AMD-V hardware extensions. The Xen Project
software uses Qemu to emulate PC hardware, including BIOS, IDE disk
controller, VGA graphic adapter, USB controller, network adapter etc.
Virtualization hardware extensions are used to boost performance of
the emulation. Fully virtualized guests do not require any kernel
support. This means that Windows operating systems can be used as a
Xen Project HVM guest. Fully virtualized guests are usually slower
than paravirtualized guests, because of the required emulation.
Source: Xen Project Wiki
In the following book these terms are considered synonymous.
At one extreme you have full virtualization, or emulation, in which
the virtual machine is a software simulation of hardware, real or
fictional — as long as there’s a driver, it doesn’t matter much.
Products in this category include VMware and QEMU.
Source: The book of Xen
Following are the excerpts from an article describing the actual difference between emulation and HWM. However, the only distinction I can see is, that virtualization enables to create more than one computing environment.
If emulation takes such a toll, why bother? Because we might want to
do one of the following:
Run an OS on a hardware platform for which it was not designed.
Run an application on a device other than the one it was developed for (e.g., run a Windows program on a Mac).
Read data that was written onto storage media by a device we no longer have or that no longer works.
Source: Russell Kay
Virtual machines offer the following advantages:
They're compatible with all Intel x86 computers.
They're isolated from one another, just as if they were physically separate.
Each is a complete, encapsulated computing environment.
They're essentially independent of the underlying hardware.
They're created using existing hardware.
Source: Russell Kay
There is another article, which only supports my hypothesis.
Emulation, in short, involves making one system imitate another. For
example, if a piece of software runs on system A and not on system B,
we make system B “emulate” the working of system A. The software then
runs on an emulation of system A.
In this same example, virtualization would involve taking system A and
splitting it into two servers, B and C.
So lets consider B=C and we have emulation, dont we?
Please note that virtualization is achieved by emulating the hardware components network adapters, USB, hard disk, CD drives etc in software. Thus emulation actually helps achieving virtualization.
Full virtualization is the technique of virtualization in which the guest OS runs unmodified, that is, the guest is not aware of whether it is running in a virtual machine environment or on a physical machine. Initially binary translation of the guest code was done in order to achieve full virtualization, but it wasn't good from performance perspective.
Para virtualization is a technique which requires modifications in the guest Operating System in order to gain better performance.
Hardware assisted virtualization is full virtualization technique as the guest Operating System runs unmodified. It is called hardware assisted because this type of virtualization utilizes virutalization specific extensions in host hardware like Intel-vtx, AMD-V etc. This technique not only offers full virtualization (guest OS does not require modification) but also has performance benefits and major vendors like Intel and AMD are providing extensions in hardware to support virtualization.
I am going through the topic of virtualization and i am totally sucked up understanding the basic concept, Wikipedia does provide some relevant information, but it is not good enough for me to understand the basic idea. The concept will be of 2 to 3 line, but neither I am able to find them on net, nor on the book.
I will be pleased if someone gives me a basic understanding of these three types. I am well aware of virtualization and understand it well, but these 3 types...
Paravirtualization is virtualization in which the guest operating system (the one being virtualized) is aware that it is a guest and accordingly has drivers that, instead of issuing hardware commands, simply issue commands directly to the host operating system. This also includes memory and thread management as well, which usually require unavailable privileged instructions in the processor.
Full Virtualization is virtualization in which the guest operating system is unaware that it is in a virtualized environment, and therefore hardware is virtualized by the host operating system so that the guest can issue commands to what it thinks is actual hardware, but really are just simulated hardware devices created by the host.
Hardware Assisted Virtualization is a type of Full Virtualization where the microprocessor architecture has special instructions to aid the virtualization of hardware. These instructions might allow a virtual context to be setup so that the guest can execute privileged instructions directly on the processor without affecting the host. Such a feature set is often called a Hypervisor. If said instructions do not exist, Full Virtualization is still possible, however it must be done via software techniques such as Dynamic Recompilation where the host recompiles on the fly privileged instructions in the guest to be able to run in a non-privileged way on the host.
There is also a combination of Para Virtualization and Full Virtualization called Hybrid Virtualization where parts of the guest operating system use paravirtualization for certain hardware drivers, and the host uses full virtualization for other features. This often produces superior performance on the guest without the need for the guest to be completely paravirtualized. An example of this: The guest uses full virtualization for privileged instructions in the kernel but paravirtualization for IO requests using a special driver in the guest. This way the guest operating system does not need to be fully paravirtualized, since this is sometimes not available, but can still enjoy some paravirtualized features by implementing special drivers for the guest.
In the case of hardware assisted virtualisation, the virtualisation is designed in. Instruction set provides instructions for partitioning the host. See VT-x technology of Intel as an example. So that the hypervisor works directly with hardware without using any operating system to acces it and provide full virtualisation
If I install a bare-metal hypervisor (say, ESXi), would it allow me to run Windows 7 concurrently with Linux?
Would it allow me to run multiple instances of Windows 7?
When I'm sitting at the PC that's running Win7 and Linux on a hypervisor, which OS do I see when I look at the screen? (I'm suspecting that the only way to access either OS is to do a remote login.)
Assuming the answer to #2 is yes, how do you manage multiple installs of Win7 on the same hard drive?
Thanks in advance!
If you simply want to run Linux and Windows in parallel you may of course do this on e.g. ESXi. Still, the OSes would run with virtualized (or emulated) hardware available to them, i.e. you would not be able to easily access all the hardware directly and the hypervisor itself not only introduces an overhead but this overhead is not deterministic.
If you want to run an RTOS (like Real-Time Linux) or any other RTOS, then you need a "real-time hypervisor".
You can google for such hypervisors - there are a few out there.
(I dont want to recommend one here as we are a vendor of such a solution our selves)
Regards
GFL
I am looking into playing around with virtualization and I was wondering if there is any software that acts as the host OS but operates much like virtual box or parallels? What I mean by this is basically is there an "OS" that more or less acts as a window manager for other virtualized desktops?
Thanks!!
Yes, Citrix XenClient does exactly what you're looking for (and they've got a free version, XenClient Express)
Unfortunately due to the nature of virtualization on "bare metal" (without an OS) the Hypervisor (the OS bit that hosts the VMs) needs to be compatible with your exact hardware.
For more information, checkout the XenClient Hardware Compatibility List. The best value machine you can get is probably the Dell Optiplex 780.