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Xen 3.0 Virtualization Interface Guide
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2. Virtual Architecture

In a Xen/x86 system, only the hypervisor runs with full processor privileges (ring 0 in the x86 four-ring model). It has full access to the physical memory available in the system and is responsible for allocating portions of it to running domains.

On a 32-bit x86 system, guest operating systems may use rings 1, 2 and 3 as they see fit. Segmentation is used to prevent the guest OS from accessing the portion of the address space that is reserved for Xen. We expect most guest operating systems will use ring 1 for their own operation and place applications in ring 3.

On 64-bit systems it is not possible to protect the hypervisor from untrusted guest code running in rings 1 and 2. Guests are therefore restricted to run in ring 3 only. The guest kernel is protected from its applications by context switching between the kernel and currently running application.

In this chapter we consider the basic virtual architecture provided by Xen: CPU state, exception and interrupt handling, and time. Other aspects such as memory and device access are discussed in later chapters.

Xen 3.0 Virtualization Interface Guide
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