Lguest is a
Linux kernel x86 virtualization
x86 virtualization is the use of hardware-assisted virtualization capabilities on an x86/x86-64 CPU.
In the late 1990s x86 virtualization was achieved by complex software techniques, necessary to compensate for the processor's lack of hardware-as ...
hypervisor
A hypervisor (also known as a virtual machine monitor, VMM, or virtualizer) is a type of computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines. A computer on which a hypervisor runs one or more virtual machines is called ...
introduced in kernel version 2.6.23 (released 9 October 2007) and removed in kernel version 4.14 (November 2017). The hypervisor is an
operating-system-level virtualization
OS-level virtualization is an operating system (OS) paradigm in which the kernel allows the existence of multiple isolated user space instances, called ''containers'' (LXC, Solaris containers, Docker, Podman), ''zones'' (Solaris containers), '' ...
system capable of running unmodified 32-bit x86 Linux kernels as guest machines. Installation is as easy as running ''modprobe lg'' followed by ''tools/lguest/lguest'' to create a new guest.
Lguest can still be installed on kernel 4.14 and later through out-of-tree patches.
Lguest was maintained by
Rusty Russell
Rusty Russell is an Australian free software programmer and advocate, known for his work on the Linux kernel's networking subsystem and the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard.
Software development
Russell wrote the packet filtering systems ipc ...
.
See also
*
Comparison of platform virtualization software
Platform virtualization software, specifically emulators and hypervisors, are software packages that emulate the whole physical computer machine, often providing multiple virtual machines on one physical platform. The table below compares basic i ...
*
Kernel-based Virtual Machine
Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a virtualization module in the Linux kernel that allows the kernel to function as a hypervisor. It was merged into the mainline Linux kernel in version 2.6.20, which was released on February 5, 2007. KV ...
References
External links
*
An introduction to lguest(LWN.net)
Linux kernel features
Free virtualization software
Virtualization software for Linux
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