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As searched shown KVM is not bare-metal and can be installed on some Linux distros, I wonder is it possible to install KVM hypervisor on Solaris?

R1w
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2 Answers2

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Yes and no, it depends on what you actually want from it. Do you want the /dev/kvm API or do you just want to run hardware-accelerated qemu?

The core KVM hypervisor isn't a regular program; it is an integral part of the Linux kernel. It's not something you install from your distro, and it's not something you can simply compile and run on a non-Linux system.

But KVM does nothing on its own – it is usually managed through Qemu where it acts as an "accelerator" backend – that is, KVM supervises the virtual CPUs but Qemu emulates all the remaining hardware (disks, GPUs, network interfaces). When most people talk about running VMs via KVM, they usually mean qemu -accel kvm (or sometimes alternatives like kvmtool).

Qemu can run on other operating systems, as long as they have a supported hypervisor – it doesn't need Linux KVM specifically. In theory you should get the same results with e.g. qemu -accel haxm on Windows as with Linux KVM.

That said, KVM has apparently been ported to Illumos, which is a Solaris derivative, and is used in the SmartOS product. (Of course, while illumos-kvm is based on Linux KVM, they are no longer the same as both have diverged in their own ways since then – they both just provide the same /dev/kvm API to userspace programs.)

So if you want to run qemu -enable-kvm on Illumos/OmniOS/SmartOS, you can do that. There is no KVM on OpenSolaris, however – at least not that I could find.

user1686
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    I don't know what _is_ available on Solaris... There's Oracle VirtualBox, I guess? (Bare qemu without a supported hypervisor backend would be slow, as it'd have to use CPU-based emulation.) – user1686 Apr 30 '19 at 16:55
  • Oracle VirtualBox is a emulator but i am looking for hypervisor! – R1w Apr 30 '19 at 16:58
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    No, they work the same way though... Both qemu-kvm _and_ virtualbox use a hosted hypervisor with hardware acceleration (qemu uses KVM, virtualbox uses its own kernel driver) whenever possible, and both emulate what isn't possible to virtualize. – user1686 Apr 30 '19 at 17:44
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Solaris for Sparc and Intel are capable to run the Oracle (Zen) based Hyper-visor environment. They provide full featured virtualisation environments.

The IOS can be downloaded from this link: https://www.oracle.com/virtualization/technologies/vm/downloads/server-storage-vm-downloads.html

Some require a Oracle account (that does not need to be associated with a support contract). Though some features require an enterprise support contract. Personal use is O.K. providing it is not on behalf of company or organisation.

bjoster
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Charles Huddart
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