KVM - virtualization support

[Tapas Mishra]

On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 1:17 PM, Robert P. J. Day <rpjday at crashcourse.ca>wrote:

> On Tue, 21 Dec 2010, Sengottuvelan S wrote:
>
> > Hi All,
> >
> > I have below architecture. I assume it does not support KVM. Please point
> me somone what
> > is exactly needed to support KVM support in my machine?
> >
> > # egrep -c ' lm ' /proc/cpuinfo
> > 2
> > # uname -m
> > x86_64
> > # uname -a
> > Linux ubuntu 2.6.32-24-generic #39-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jul 28 05:14:15 UTC
> 2010 x86_64
> > GNU/Linux
> > and
> >
> > # cat /proc/cpuinfo
> > processor : 0
> > vendor_id : GenuineIntel
> > cpu family : 6
> > model  : 23
> > model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     E7200  @ 2.53GHz
>
>   why not just go straight to the source and check:
>
>  http://ark.intel.com/VTList.aspx
>
> that list clearly seems to suggest that the core 2 duo does *not* have
> virt support.
>
That is correct Sengottuvelan S I checked on that link your machine doest
not support vt so the hardware does not support Virtualization but that just
means that a hypervisor which needs hardware support i.e. vmx instruction
set will not run in your case KVM.
But you can use Xen,QEMU,Virtualbox or VMware also.
If you have some specific work or project then that means you need to get
another machine.
In  otherwise case use something other than KVM.
Xen might be a bit difficult for you to setup on Ubuntu but if you use
CentOS things should work perfectly.
CentOS is RHEL but with proprietary softwares and logo of Red Hat removed.
I hope I answered what you wanted to know.
The kernel has nothing to do with hardware support.(Correct me if I am
wrong)
It is the hypervisor which needs support from your cpu in terms of
instruction set.

On the same hardware that you have you can give a shot to xen (again if you
use CentOS it has a GUI and Xen is shipped on its DVD image
precompiled).That way you can do give a try to things that you need.
On some places on internet you may get vmware images of Linux preinstalled
you can download them and vmware player is freely available from the
official site.
That way you can run your virtual machine.
As far as this hardware is concerned  currently you will not be able to run
KVM on it as you
/proc/cpuinfo output also says clearly
see the following

On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 7:13 AM, Sengottuvelan S
<sengottuvelan.s at gmail.com>wrote:

>   model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     E7200  @ 2.53GHz
> flags  : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov
> pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx lm
> constant
> _tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl
> est tm2
>  ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm sse4_1 lahf_lm
>

here I do not see vmx flag,lm flag is there in above output which means it
supports 64 bit,but due to vmx absent you can not run a hypervisor which
needs vmx support to run.
Presence of vmx instruction set means a hypervisor which exclusively depends
upon this instruction set will be able to run.In your case KVM depends.
The options of BIOS will not help as Roberts Link points it.

"Your CPU E7200 does not support vt."
This means a hypervisor which needs vmx instruction set to run will not be
able to run,but there are other hypervisors
or in laymans term virtualization solution which would still run
irrespective of hardware supporting vt.

Kernel has not any thing to do to support KVM.
When your hypervisor is running then it passes on specific instruction set
to the CPU.
In old days when vmx support was not available and Virtualization was just
evolving,
people used to run Virtual machines ( I am aware of someone  doing such
stuff a few decades back) using the same instruction set which is found on
normal desktops.

So KVM will not run currently (not because of kernel,but because of hardware
support) on your machine.
I hope the list answered your question.
-- 
http://mightydreams.blogspot.com
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