Virtualization Cheat Sheet#
Term |
Description |
|---|---|
QEMU |
A generic and open source machine emulator and virtualizer. It can emulate a complete computer system, including a processor and various peripherals, and can run a guest OS on the same hardware as the host. |
KVM |
A Linux kernel module that allows a user space program to utilize the hardware virtualization features of various processors. It is a type 1 hypervisor built into the Linux kernel. |
libvirt |
A toolkit to manage virtualization platforms. It provides a common API for managing various virtualization platforms, such as QEMU and KVM. |
Type 1 hypervisor |
A bare-metal hypervisor that runs directly on the host’s hardware to control the hardware and manage guest operating systems. |
Type 2 hypervisor |
A hosted hypervisor that runs on a conventional operating system just like other computer programs, such as VirtualBox and VMware Workstation. |
LXC |
Linux Containers (LXC) is an operating-system-level virtualization method for running multiple isolated Linux systems (containers) on a single Linux control host. |
OpenVZ |
An operating-system-level virtualization technology for Linux. It allows a physical server to run multiple isolated operating system instances, called containers or VEs (Virtual Environments). |
VMware ESXi |
A type 1 hypervisor developed by VMware for deploying and serving virtual computers. |
Xen |
An open-source type 1 hypervisor that enables the creation, management, and execution of virtual machines. |
Hyper-V |
A type 1 hypervisor developed by Microsoft for running virtual machines on Windows systems. |
Vagrant |
A tool for building and managing virtual machine environments in a single workflow. |
Proxmox VE |
An open-source server virtualization management solution based on QEMU/KVM and LXC. |
VirtualBox |
A type 2 hypervisor developed by Oracle for running virtual machines on various operating systems. |
SR-IOV |
A specification that allows the isolation of PCI Express resources for manageability and performance. |
vSphere |
A suite of server virtualization products from VMware, including ESXi and vCenter Server. |