MHYPER:Virtualization Extensions into a Microkernel based Operating System

Since it emerged in the late '60s to the present virtualization technology has progressed and the expression “Virtual Machine” (VM) has changed its meaning, considering the virtualized component and how and where the virtualization is done. The software component for virtualization is the hypervisor that allows to create, to run and to end VMs.
On the other hand, in the mid-1980’s emerges the microkernel technology as the minimal software layer that provide basic mechanisms to build Operating Systems (OS). In microkernel based OSs’ components (filesystem management, process management, networking services, etc.) run isolated in user-mode without supervisor privileges providing fault isolation for reliability and reducing the trusted computing base (TCB) for security.
Despite design differences among microkernels and hypervisors, they share some common features and goals. This contribution explores the opportunities to include virtualization support on Minix OS presenting several approaches. It also details the design, the implementation and the evaluation of Mhyper, a microkernel/hypervisor prototype resulting from adding virtualization extensions to Minix.