Security and Performance in the Delegated User-level Virtualization
summary
Proposes moving the VM plane out of the kernel so all host‑attacking hypervisor CVEs no longer run in kernel mode, implemented as a 481-line Chisel DV extension and a Rust DuVisor (≈7k LOC) with a 337-line kernel driver, evaluated on FireSim with a RISC‑V Rocket prototype. Results show stage‑2 page‑fault handling 65–89% faster, MMIO emulation ~10× faster, overall guest performance within a few percent of native/optimized KVM, and the host remains protected even if the user hypervisor is compromised.
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chapters (12)
- 0:00Delegated virtualization intro
- 1:13Virtualization evolution and risks
- 3:01Why prior solutions failed
- 4:26Proposed architecture
- 5:31Threat model and hardware
- 6:13DV extension operation
- 6:57Physical memory checking
- 7:40Implementation details
- 8:22Security against malicious guests
- 9:27Performance setup and baseline
- 10:29Benchmark results
- 11:33Conclusion and future
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