[vbox-dev] Genode 14.02 supports VirtualBox on Nova microhypervisor

[Frank Mehnert]

Alexander,

On Friday 28 February 2014 14:16:38 Alexander Boettcher wrote:
> today we released [0] a new version of Genode [1], which, beside many
> other stuff, adds experimental support for VirtualBox as user-level VMM
> on top of the NOVA microhypervisor [2].

That's great news!

> For years, Genode addressed virtualization beginning with OKLinux on the
> OKL4 microkernel. Later, we added support for L4Linux on Fiasco.OC
> microkernel and the Vancouver/Seoul VMM on NOVA. All these solutions had
> strong points in distinct usage scenarios but we always missed support
> for a wide range of guest OSes, guest-host integration features, ease of
> use, active development, and, finally, support for MS Windows guests.
> 
> Therefore, we decided to undertake the adventure to bring VirtualBox as
> VMM on top of Genode/Nova and it turned out to be doable, luckily. In
> the current state of the port [5] we are happy to report that various
> OSes as GNU/Linux, Android/x86, Windows XP, Windows 7, HelenOS, Minix-3,
> GNU Hurd, and of course Genode works on VirtualBox at Genode/Nova with
> hardware virtualization (VT-x) support.
> 
> Of course - this is just feasible because VirtualBox is structured in a
> way that made it possible to understand and to conclude which parts are
> necessary to port and which are necessary to write by our own - thanks
> to your well separation of the r0, r3, front-end, device model and
> hardware acceleration source code.
> 
> We are grateful of your work on VirtualBox, especially as open source.
> Thank you ! Keep up your good work.
> 
> Finally, of course, we have some patches for the generic (non Genode
> specific part) of VirtualBox source code we would like to contribute
> back. Assuming that this is welcome - have I to follow the description
> of [3] before I can send patches to this mailing list or I have just to
> open requests in the bugtracker [4] ? Or both ? Thanks in advance.

The preferred way is that you follow https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/ICA
and send the signed and scanned Oracle contributors agreement to the
email address provided there, perhaps with me in cc. If you want to go
the alternative way (MIT, see point 2 in
   https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Contributor_information), you should
add the license statement to every patch you submit to this mailing list
to be on the safe side.

I propose to send your patches to this mailing list. We will review the
patches and might include it into our repository if they fit.

Thanks,

Frank
-- 
Dr.-Ing. Frank Mehnert | Software Development Director, VirtualBox
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