OpenVMM – A New VMM for Windows and Linux, Written in Rust

by g0xA52A2Aon 10/17/2024, 5:42 AMwith 118 comments

by robjwellson 10/17/2024, 10:23 AM

Note this “disclaimer” in the guide:

> In recent years, development efforts in the OpenVMM project have primarily focused on OpenHCL (AKA: OpenVMM as a paravisor).

> As a result, not a lot of "polish" has gone into making the experience of running OpenVMM in traditional host contexts particularly "pleasant".

> This lack of polish manifests in several ways, including but not limited to: […]

> • No API or feature-set stability guarantees whatsoever.

https://github.com/microsoft/openvmm/blob/main/Guide/src/use...

by tonyedgecombeon 10/17/2024, 10:01 AM

In case anybody else wondered VMM = Virtual Machine Monitor.

by ericydon 10/17/2024, 1:05 PM

Thank God this VMM is written in Rust, otherwise I would be very skeptical. I don't care about features or purpose or technical advantages, give me Rust or give me death.

by Vogtinatoron 10/17/2024, 1:26 PM

Cargo.lock has 8750 lines. Is that normal for something like this?

For comparison, QEMU basically just needs glibc, glib and zlib for basic functionality.

by zokieron 10/17/2024, 10:20 AM

How does this relate/compare to CloudHypervisor, another Rust based VMM that has been around for couple of years

https://github.com/cloud-hypervisor/cloud-hypervisor

by rwmjon 10/17/2024, 11:59 AM

Slides from Linux Plumbers talk about OpenHCL: https://lpc.events/event/18/contributions/1956/attachments/1...

by efitzon 10/17/2024, 3:13 PM

Half the user guide is empty.

I want to understand what communication channel(s) it has from guest to host. It's not clear from the cut-and-paste support described in the VNC section of the manual, how this works and what other functionality might be supported.

by AlfredBarneson 10/17/2024, 1:18 PM

Rust was something i thought was a cute little language years ago, much like i thought python was. I didn't pay attention for like 2 years and it feels likes it's everywhere and everything.

Time to learn.

by vrighteron 10/17/2024, 1:32 PM

it's written in rust is the only thing worth mentioning about it? congratulations on writing a thing that does something, i guess

by kosolamon 10/17/2024, 9:17 AM

A very interesting project. If I understand correctly it’s being used for Azure infrastructure.

by Dowwieon 10/17/2024, 2:06 PM

A New Virtual Machine Monitor for Windows and Linux that happens to be written in Rust

by hollerithon 10/17/2024, 2:44 PM

VMM == Virtual Machine Monitor, "such as Hyper-V, QEMU, VirtualBox".

by _0xddon 10/17/2024, 4:53 PM

Nice! Would be pretty cool if this supported bhyve on FreeBSD.

by low_tech_loveon 10/17/2024, 9:40 AM

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