Chapter 46. Virtualization
Nested virtualization
As a Technology Preview, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 offers nested virtualization. This feature enables KVM to launch guests that can act as hypervisors and create their own guests. For more information, see the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Virtualization Deployment and Administration Guide. (BZ#1187762)
USB 3.0 support for KVM guests
USB 3.0 host adapter (xHCI) emulation for KVM guests remains a Technology Preview in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.3. (BZ#1103193)
Select Intel network adapters now support SR-IOV as a guest on Hyper-V
In this update for Red Hat Enterprise Linux guest virtual machines running on Hyper-V, a new PCI passthrough driver adds the ability to use the single-root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) feature for Intel network adapters supported by the ixgbevf driver. This ability is enabled when the following conditions are met:
- SR-IOV support is enabled for the network interface controller (NIC)
- SR-IOV support is enabled for the virtual NIC
- SR-IOV support is enabled for the virtual switch
The virtual function (VF) from the NIC is attached to the virtual machine.
The feature is currently supported with Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 5. (BZ#1348508)
Driver added for devices that connect over a PCI Express bus in guest virtual machine under Hyper-V
In this update, a new driver was added that exposes a root PCI bus when a devices that connects over a PCI Express bus is passed through to a Red Hat Enterprise Linux guest virtual machine running on the Hyper-V hypervisor. The feature is currently supported with Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 5. (BZ#1302147)
Open Virtual Machine Firmware
The Open Virtual Machine Firmware (OVMF) is available as a Technology Preview in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7. OVMF is a UEFI secure boot environment for AMD64 and Intel 64 guests. However, OVMF is not bootable with virtualization components available in RHEL 7. Note that OVMF is fully supported in RHEL 8.
