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The Xen Hypervisor

The document discusses the Xen hypervisor. It describes Xen as an open source virtualization platform that can run up to 100 virtual machines simultaneously. It explains Xen's architecture, which includes a hypervisor that sits below guest operating systems and a privileged Domain 0 VM that manages other domains. The document also covers Xen's memory management, CPU virtualization, scheduling, and evaluations of its efficiency, security, and use in production environments.

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374 views

The Xen Hypervisor

The document discusses the Xen hypervisor. It describes Xen as an open source virtualization platform that can run up to 100 virtual machines simultaneously. It explains Xen's architecture, which includes a hypervisor that sits below guest operating systems and a privileged Domain 0 VM that manages other domains. The document also covers Xen's memory management, CPU virtualization, scheduling, and evaluations of its efficiency, security, and use in production environments.

Uploaded by

api-19455397
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The Xen Hypervisor

TM

Destin Smith-Norris

COP 4610 - Computer Operating Systems


The Xen Hypervisor
• What is Xen?
• Why Xen?
• Xen Architecture
• Functions of Xen
• Evaluation
What is Xen?
• Xen is a platform for
virtualizing Operating
Systems
• Its goals are to be efficient,
secure, robust and scalable
• Can handle up to 100
simultaneous OS instances
including Linux and Windows
• Can run either paravirtualized
guests or fully virtualized
guests
Why Virtualize with Xen?
• The main advantages to OS virtualization
are security, hardware reduction,
efficiency, and application mobility [1]
• The uses for such an environment are
limitless
• Can host many private services on
dedicated operating system instances with
complete isolation on single server
History of Xen
• Xen is an open source operating system
originally developed as a research project at the
University of Cambridge in 2003
• It is included in many commercial Linux
distributions, as well as influencing Microsoft’s
Hyper-V[3] and Citrix’s virtualization products
• It has been implemented into countless
commercial products from companies including
Sun, Oracle, Microsoft and Citrix
Architecture
• The foundation of a Xen system is the Xen
Hypervisor [4]. This is what sits directly on the
hardware of a system below any other Operating
Systems.
• It is responsible for CPU scheduling between
kernels and memory management for the
various virtual machines running above it[4].
• The Hypervisor has no knowledge of networking,
storage or any other standard I/O function found
on the computer[4].
Architecture
• A modified Linux kernel runs directly above
the Xen Hypervisor, called Domain0
• This unique virtual machine is given access
to the physical hardware resources available
on the computer
• Hosts the Xen Domain Management and
Control
Architecture
• Running parallel to Domain 0 are any number of
other modified Operating Systems
• These are called Domain U (Dom U) PV
guests[4]. These are paravirtualized virtual
machines running on top of the Xen hypervisor
• It is also possible to run fully virtualized
machines as Domain U HVM guests
• Running a Windows operating system would be
an example of this
Architecture
Memory Management
• Xen is responsible for ensuring the
complete isolation of VMs
• Processes are given direct access to
memory, Xen is only needed when a
process needs to go out of its reserved
memory space
• The insures efficiency and security
CPU Virtualization
• Xen runs on higher privilege level than
guest OSes (hence ‘hypervisor’)
• In x86 machines, Xen runs in most
privileged ring 0, guests OS run in 1, and
user land processes run in ring 3
CPU Scheduling
• Guests control their own processes
scheduling
• Scheduling between guest OSes is
controlled by Xen
• Admin can select from multiple scheduling
algorithms, including Borrowed Virtual
Time, Simple Earliest Deadline First, and
Credit
Evaluation
• Xen – Less is More
• Under 150,000 lines of code
• Can save thousands in hardware and
energy reductions
• Used in production environments around
the world
• Security is a major issue
Sources
• [1] Paul Barham, Boris Dragovic, Keir Fraser, Steven Hand, Tim
Harris, Alex Ho, Rolf Neugebauer, Ian Pratt, and Andrew Warfield.
Xen and the art of virtualization. In SOSP ’03: Proceedings of the
nineteenth ACM symposium on Operating systems principles,
pages 164–177, New York, NY, USA, 2003. ACM.
• [2] L. Cherkasova, D. Gupta, and A. Vahdat. Comparison of the
three CPU schedulers in Xen. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
REVIEW, 35(2):42, 2007.
• [3] Mary Jo Foley. Review: Microsoft’s hyper-v puts vmware and
linux on notice. http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1182.
• [4] Xenc . Xen Architecture Overview, 2008.

• Images taken from Xen and XenSource publications.

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