The native Linux virtualisation hypervisor Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) has reached milestone 87 and now integrates the qemu emulator into a single package.

Scores of changes have occurred since the 86 release last month, and with the merge of qemu upstream brings better tuning and visibility of the live migration process, the setting of qcow2 (qemu disk image format) cluster size is now allowed, qcow2 optimisations, and networking improvements.

For the full list of changes see the KVM project site on SourceForge.net.

KVM is included in the mainline Linux kernel so the changes should begin to appear in distributions in their upcoming release cycles.

KVM-87 now includes support for the HTTP protocol using Curl version six, which allows booting a live CD over HTTP.

Also new is support for port redirection, which allows port redirection in the fly using standard networking tools.

Hadyn Solomon's KVM blog has more details about these two features.

The KVM project is online at http://www.linux-kvm.org.