KVM With Linux 5.14 Brings ARM MTE, Hyper-V Optimizations

Written by Michael Larabel in Virtualization on 28 June 2021 at 04:23 AM EDT. Add A Comment
VIRTUALIZATION
The KVM changes were submitted early ahead of the now-open Linux 5.14 merge window.

KVM highlights for Linux 5.14 include:

- ARM MTE support for guests as the Memory Tagging Extension for increasing memory safety.

- Support the vGIC on "dumb systems" like the Apple M1. The actual kernel patch went on to explain, "The CPUs in the Apple M1 SoC partially implement a virtual GICv3 CPU interface, although one that is incapable of HW deactivation of interrupts, nor masking the maintenance interrupt."

- Support for Hyper-V fast hypercalls using XMM registers.

- Support for Hyper-V TLB flush hypercalls and enlightened MSR bitmaps on AMD processors.

- TLB flushing clean-ups for KVM x86/x86_64.

- KVM also now allows user-space to handle emulation errors / unknown instructions.

- Optimizations to avoid shattering huge pages at the beginning of live migrations.

More details via the KVM pull request.
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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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