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<tr align="left"><td valign="top" bgcolor="#e0e0e0">Fun and Games<br>
<font size="-1"><a href="http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/hangman">Kernel Hangman</a></font>
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<font size="-1"><a href="sdotm.html">Disaster of the Month</a></font>
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<center>
<h3>The Kernel</h3>
</center>
UML is a fully-functional Linux kernel. It runs its own scheduler and
VM system, relying on the host kernel only for the equivalent of hardware
support.
<p>
The virtual machine is completely configurable through the command
line, allowing its memory, available devices, and their configurations
to be specified. The available command line switches are described
<a href="switches.html">here</a>.
<p>
<a name="Hardware support"/><table width="100%" bgcolor="#e0e0e0">
<tr>
<td>
<b>
<font color="black">Hardware support</font>
</b>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<blockquote head="Hardware support">
UML hardware support comes in the form of virtual devices which use
resources on the host. It supports all the usual types of devices
that a physical system does:
<ul>
<li>
Block devices - UML block devices are normally associated with a file
on the host which contains a filesystem. This file is made to look
like a block device inside the virtual machine, and the filesystem on
it is mounted just as a filesystem on a physical disk is mounted in a
native kernel. A block device file may also contain a swap signature,
in which case, UML will be willing to swap onto it. It can also be
treated as a raw disk, which isn't mounted, but instead has data read
from and written to it with a utility such as dd.
<p>
Block devices can also be attached to anything on the host which resembles
a file. Examples include CD-ROMS, floppies, physical disks and
partitions, and memory devices such as /dev/mem.
<p>
UML block devices can be layered, with a read-only device having a
copy-on-write (COW) read-write device on top of it. This acts as a
single read-write device, with the modifications to the read-only
layer being recorded in the read-write COW layer. This allows
multiple machines to share a filesystem, allowing a large saving in
disk space on the host. If you are doing development, and plan on
crashing UML frequently, then COW-ing your root filesystem allows you
to avoid fscking it on each boot by deleting the COW file and reusing
the clean backing file. This is described further
<a href="shared_fs.html">here</a>.
</li>
<li>
Consoles and serial lines - These are almost identical, sharing most
of their code, and differing only where they need to present different
interfaces to the rest of the kernel. They can be attached to a
number of different interfaces on the host, including file
descriptors, ptys, ttys, pts devices, and xterms. More information
about this is <a href="input.html">here</a>.
<p>
By default, the main console is attached to file descriptors 0 and 1
(stdin and stdout), the other consoles come up in xterms, and the
serial lines attach themselves to ptys.
</li>
<li>
Network devices - Similarly, the network driver can use a variety of
host interfaces to exchange packets with other virtual machines, the
host, and the rest of the network. To construct a completely virtual
network, with no access to the host networking, UML can use a hub
daemon to forward packets from one virtual machine to another or it
can set up a multicast network and have the machines send packets
directly to each other. To access the host and the outside network,
UML can use either ethertap or slip interfaces on the host. A more
complete description of this is
<a href="networking.html">here</a>.
</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<a name="Hot-plugging devices"/><table width="100%" bgcolor="#e0e0e0">
<tr>
<td>
<b>
<font color="black">Hot-plugging devices</font>
</b>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<blockquote head="Hot-plugging devices">
The <a href="mconsole.html">management console</a> is a
low-level interface into the kernel. Among other things, it allows
UML devices to be added to and removed from a running system.
Currently, the block devices and network devices can be hot-plugged.
In time, this will be extended to the rest of the devices, so you will
be able to construct, destroy, and rebuild essentially the entire
system without having to reboot it.
</blockquote>
<a name="Generic kernel functionality"/><table width="100%" bgcolor="#e0e0e0">
<tr>
<td>
<b>
<font color="black">Generic kernel functionality</font>
</b>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<blockquote head="Generic kernel functionality">
UML runs its scheduler independently of the host scheduler - the host
scheduler simply implements the decisions made by the UML scheduler.
Similarly, UML runs its own VM system, allocating backing memory from
a pool that it considers to be physical memory, mapping that memory as
needed into its process virtual address spaces and its own virtual
memory. If needed, and it has swap configured, it will swap.
<p>
Basically, anything in Linux that's not hardware-specific just works.
This includes kernel modules, the filesystems, software devices, and
network protocols.
</blockquote>
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