Direct Mode for Virtualization

A computing system having a host operating system and supporting a guest operating system in a virtualization mode, the computing system comprising:

• a processing module having one or more hardware processors;
• memory include a kernel space and a user space, the memory storing the guest operating system in the user space;
• wherein the processing module is configured to implement the virtualization mode by:
• execution of the host operating system, the host operating system being associated with a set of hardware resources of the computing system;
• load a guest process that is associated with the guest operating system;
• implement a compatibility layer to handle all system calls from the guest process (guest syscalls), the compatibility layer supporting a virtualized subset of the hardware resources in which one or more hardware resources of the set are not emulated;
• upon the guest process issuing a guest syscall, having the compatibility layer trap the guest syscall;
• decode, by the compatibility layer, the guest syscall according to one or more syscall conventions of the guest operating system;
• issue, by the compatibility layer based on the decoding, a host system call (host syscall) to a host kernel or a hypervisor associated with the host operating system;
• and
• execute the host syscall issued by the compatibility layer.

A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium having instructions stored thereon, the instructions, when executed by one or more processors of a computing system having a host operating system and a guest operating system, cause the computing system to implement a virtualization mode method of operation, the method comprising:

• executing the host operating system on the computing system, the host operating system being associated with a set of hardware resources of the computing system;
• loading a guest process that is associated with the guest operating system;
• implementing a compatibility layer to handle all system calls from the guest process (guest syscalls), the compatibility layer supporting a virtualized subset of the hardware resources in which an interrupt controller is not emulated;
• upon the guest process issuing a guest syscall, the compatibility layer trapping the guest syscall;
• decoding, by the compatibility layer, the guest syscall according to one or more syscall conventions of the guest operating system;
• issuing, by the compatibility layer based on the decoding, a host system call (host syscall) to a host kernel or a hypervisor associated with the host operating system;
• and
• executing the host syscall issued by the compatibility layer.