A Kernel-based Virtual Machine is an open source virtualisation for the Linux kernel distributions.
The KVM was merged into the Linux kernel mainline in kernel version 2.6.20, with the use of a type-two hypervisor. It has also been ported to FreeBSD and illumos, activated in the form of loadable kernel modules.
In order for the Kernel-based Virtual Machine to work, it requires a processor with hardware virtualisation extensions.
Want to know who KVM was invented by? See next page.
KVM supports a range of different operating system images other than Linux, which include Windows, BSD and Solaris.
The KVM hypervisor is the virtualisation layer in the Kernel-based Virtual Machine.
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