QEMU virtualization reaches 0.11, brings 1400 changes

Open source virtualization app QEMU has reached version 0.11 and brings some 1400 changes from 90 contributors.

QEMU is a generic and machine emulator and virtualization application. It can be used as a machine emulator with dynamic binary translation or a “virtualizer” on x86-compatible processors.

QEMU can perform user emulation in order to launch Linux processes and system emulation to launch an operating system and can be used to run virtual desktops.

In announcing the release to the QEMU developer’s mailing list, Anthony Liguori said in six months the developers have added more than 80,000 lines of code and some 40,000 lines of code were removed.

New features with 0.11 include boot menu control, host network configuration, network filtering support, HTTP block device support, support for ACLs with VNC and multiple monitor support.

Since version 0.10, QEMU is integrated with the native Linux Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) hypervisor.

Version 0.11 adds KVM guest debugging support and save, restore and reboot support. For the Xen hypervisor, para-virtualized guest support has been added.

Commenting on the release, Haydn Solomon wrote on his Linux-KVM blog “most end-user features were already included in the KVM branch”.

“Hardware virtualization features added include SR-IOV which allows you to share direct memory access to IO devices among multiple virtual guest machines,” Solomon wrote.

Planning the next release, 0.12, Liguori recommends shortening the release cycle due to the large number of changes that occurred between 0.10 and 0.11.

Features Liguori would like to see make the next release include storage live migration, a switch to SeaBIOS (features need to be ported from Bochs) and a switch to gPXE.

Also in planning is KSM integration for memory consolidation, in-kernel APIC support for KVM and guest SMP support for KVM.

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