RedHawk KVM-RT

Virtualization Unleashed

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What is RedHawk KVM-RT?

RedHawk KVM-RT is an award-winning hypervisor that integrates proven Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) open-source technology with the RedHawk Linux real-time operating system. Concurrent’s KVM-RT Configuration Tool makes it easy to create virtual machines (VMs) that extend the real-time abilities of RedHawk to VMs running on a single physical host system.


The KVM-RT Configuration Tool leverages unique features of the RedHawk Linux host for memory management, process scheduling, device access and I/O. Real-time performance is guaranteed through RedHawk’s shielding and scheduling mechanisms: RedHawk KVM-RT can achieve worst-case maximum response times of less than 10 microseconds on certified hardware platforms.

Key Characteristics

RedHawk’s user-level commands, utilities, and APIs are fully compatible with standard Linux distributions such as RHEL, CentOS, and Ubuntu, enabling seamless application migration and development.

Features such as scalable processor shielding, advanced scheduling, and preemptive kernel design ensure optimal response times.

Paired with the NightStar toolset, RedHawk offers powerful debugging, monitoring, and analysis capabilities for developing and optimizing real-time applications

RedHawk Linux is more than just an RTOS; it’s a comprehensive solution for engineering teams aiming to enhance reliability, reduce development time, and achieve superior system performance in mission-critical environments.

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RedHawk KVM-RT Features

Comprehensive Real-Time Linux Capabilities

RedHawk Linux provides an extensive suite of features designed to meet the specific requirements of real-time and mission-critical environments.

Many computer systems only use fractional amounts of their processing power and resources when implemented on bare metal. By virtualizing operating systems, the full capacity of machines can be utilized as hardware resources are allocated to multiple virtual machines running in parallel on one physical system. Using virtualization to consolidate systems helps conserve resources, decrease waste, and reduce hardware and energy costs. Consolidation through virtualization also offers increased security because each virtual machine can be easily monitored and isolated from other parts of the system.
All components of a virtual machine are enclosed in a set of files that keeps the VM separate from the host and other VMs. Because a VM is independently set apart in this way, it can serve as an ideal location for a production environment to test software applications in development. Trial runs of software, operating systems, pages or applications that can result in system crashes or exposure to malicious threats will have no impact on elements outside of a single virtual machine.
Legacy software applications and phased-out operating systems may have difficulty running on newer hardware. Some legacy OS’s are supported as real-time virtual machines, which permit applications to run as if they were on bare metal hardware.
Dedicated systems may have singular purposes and only carry out specific processes for security or networking. These dedicated systems can be migrated as virtual machines onto newer hardware, the latter of which contains more resources than are needed for a single system’s specific processes. Overall, independent machines can be consolidated while maintaining a high degree of independence, performance, and security.
Virtual systems can serve as a convenient way to create backup copies of operating systems that are safely sandboxed from other operating systems, including the hosts. The virtual mobility of VMs also makes them and their associated data and programs easy to migrate from one storage location or host to another.Virtual systems can serve as a convenient way to create backup copies of operating systems that are safely sandboxed from other operating systems, including the hosts. The virtual mobility of VMs also makes them and their associated data and programs easy to migrate from one storage location or host to another.

The RedHawk KVM-RT Configuration tool uses a single configuration file to define all real-time policies for the set of virtual machines managed by it. A virtual machine manager (VMM) can easily create ‘libvirt’ configuration files (XML) which can then be imported into KVM-RT. A single KVM-RT configuration file interacts with the many ‘libvirt’ configuration files to configure the VMs appropriately for real-time policies. The following two methods are available for VM creation:

  • RedHawk Architect, which allows for the creation of tailored UEFI or legacy VMs
  • VMM, a GUI interface through which VMs can be created an maintained.

During first-time configurations for VMs, most VMMs default to a CPU topology with many sockets and a single core per socket. This may result in sub-optimal performance. To improve real-time performance, the tool allows for the modification of CPU topology to one socket with multiple cores. Furthermore, the KVM-RT Configuration Tool carries out a diverse range of scheduling, monitoring and operational tasks that increase security and help the hypervisor and VMs achieve fast, reliable performance.

The KVM-RT Configuration Tool boots and shuts down the virtual machines, with the ability to scale and support multiple real-time and non-real-time VMs. The tool also provides a transparent picture of the environment, which consists of the hypervisor and virtual OS, and it monitors the VMs to ensure real-time performance. The NightStar tools running on the RedHawk Linux host support tracing and debugging of both the hypervisor and VMs, providing insights to tune and allow users to improve system performance. In addition, Concurrent Real-Time offers guaranteed event response time of less than 10 microseconds when running real-time VMs alongside non-real-time VMs on certified platforms.

KVM-RT Releases

Changes in KVM-RT Version 1.6

Configuration File Updates (/etc/kvmrt.cfg)
  • New attribute pcidevs
    • Used to configure and validate PCI device passthrough to VMs
  • New value option auto for nr_vcpus attribute
    • When set to auto, nr_vcpus will be automatically set to all CPUs specified in the cpuset attribute minus 1

KVM-RT User’s Guide Additions

  • New chapter: “I/O Device Utilization in Virtual Environment”
  • New appendices:
    • “SR-IOV Setup”
    • “PCI Passthrough Boot Parameters”

New CLI Commands

  • cpi(1): Displays per-CPU interrupt counts of IRQs
  • cpus(1): Displays or changes the state of CPUs
  • irqs(1): Displays information about IRQs on the system
  • pci(1): Displays PCI device information
  • tasks(1): Displays information about tasks (threads) on the system

Documentation

  • Added new man pages for both RedHawk Real-time and KVM-RT tools

Version

Certified Platforms

Supported OS

1.6

Hardware:

  • Supermicro M12SWA-TF AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5975WX
  • Supermicro M12SWA-TF AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5965WX

Host Firmware: UEFI only, revision 2.1

Host OS: RedHawk 8.4.x on Rocky/RHEL 8.4 or Ubuntu 20.04

RedHawk 9.2.x on Rocky/RHEL/Oracle 9.2 or Ubuntu 22.04

RT guest Firmware: UEFI or Legacy

RT guest OS: RedHawk 7.5 or newer

Non-RT guest Firmware: UEFI or Legacy

Non-RT guest OS: Any OS*

Host OS: RedHawk 7.5 or newer

RT Guest OS: RedHawk 7.0 or newer

Non-RT guest OS: Any OS*

Blogs & News

Related Articles

  • Diagram showing software staying the same while hardware changes: Guest OS + Application on RedHawk KVM-RT Host, with Hardware Gen 1 retired, Gen 2 in production, and Gen 3 planned refresh.

    Preserving Legacy Real-Time Applications Through Virtualization

    Preserving Legacy Real-Time Applications Through Virtualization Real-time applications often remain in service much longer than the hardware on which they were originally developed. Test…

    Read more

  • Diagram comparing native RedHawk Linux (left) and RedHawk KVM-RT virtualization (right) with application layer and real-time workload on both sides.

    Native Real-Time Linux vs. Real-Time Virtualization: Which Architecture Fits Your Application?

    Native Real-Time Linux vs. Real-Time Virtualization: Which Architecture Fits Your Application? Virtualization is now common in enterprise computing, but timing-sensitive systems introduce requirements that conventional…

    Read more

  • Diagram of NUMA placement: keep Cores, Memory, and PCIe device in one node (local placement). Cross-node placement is discouraged (Node 0 and Node 1).

    How CPU Shielding, NUMA, and Interrupt Affinity Affect Real-Time Virtual Machines

    How CPU Shielding, NUMA, and Interrupt Affinity Affect Real-Time Virtual Machines Running a real-time operating system inside a virtual machine does not automatically create…

    Read more

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