Writing a Hypervisor?

Question

I am researching ideas for a PhD project.

One of my thoughts is writing a hypervisor (or bare metal) (?) so I could run multiple OS's without use of a true host operating system. Example I get a menu of some type of options to start operating systems, view what the 'console' of what is going on in an OS that is already running. Reboot OS's, install a new one, etc.

So no host OS, just a small app that controls everything.

Conceptually how does one think about doing this?

I have a MacBook. I should be able to modify what the EFI boots. Maybe start with a very minimal Linux LIve implementation and scale it really, really far back?

Is it possible to use Darwin and scale it very far back?

Answer 1

Your idea as stated is not an original contribution to the science.

My advice is to review Xen and the general hypervisor literature, dating back to the '60s & '70s when IBM invented it.

I'm certain there is room for improvement and original ideas there.

In terms of actually writing a hypervisor, you should review Wikipedia first, as it gives a good brief on virtualization.

Here is a historical summary, including some seminal citations: http://www.kernelthread.com/publications/virtualization/. Note the first citation is from 1959!