“The Xen hypervisor has become an incredibly strategic resource for the industry, as the focal point of innovation in cross-platform virtualization technology. David’s book will play a key role in helping the Xen community and ecosystem to grow.”

–Simon Crosby, CTO, XenSource

An Under-the-Hood Guide to the Power of Xen Hypervisor Internals

The Definitive Guide to the Xen Hypervisor is a comprehensive handbook on the inner workings of XenSource’s powerful open source paravirtualization solution. From architecture to kernel internals, author David Chisnall exposes key code components and shows you how the technology works, providing the essential information you need to fully harness and exploit the Xen hypervisor to develop cost-effective, highperformance Linux and Windows virtual environments.

Granted exclusive access to the XenSource team, Chisnall lays down a solid framework with overviews of virtualization and the design philosophy behind the Xen hypervisor. Next, Chisnall takes you on an in-depth exploration of the hypervisor’s architecture, interfaces, device support, management tools, and internals—including key information for developers who want to optimize applications for virtual environments. He reveals the power and pitfalls of Xen in real-world examples and includes hands-on exercises, so you gain valuable experience as you learn.

This insightful resource gives you a detailed picture of how all the pieces of the Xen hypervisor fit and work together, setting you on the path to building and implementing a streamlined, cost-efficient virtual enterprise.

Coverage includes

• Understanding the Xen virtual architecture

• Using shared info pages, grant tables, and the memory management subsystem

• Interpreting Xen’s abstract device interfaces

• Configuring and managing device support, including event channels, monitoring with XenStore, supporting core devices, and adding new device types

• Navigating the inner workings of the Xen API and userspace tools

• Coordinating virtual machines with the Scheduler Interface and API, and adding a new scheduler

• Securing near-native speed on guest machines using HVM

• Planning for future needs, including porting, power management, new devices, and unusual architectures

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 4 Ratings

Wonderful learnig opportunity - 2007-12-22
Reviewer Rating:
I'm a big fan of open source and virtualization, so I was probably predisposed to like this book, but it far exceeded my expectations.

By the way, this is a good looking book - the images here don't do it justice. Whoever was responsible for the cover deserves a nice bonus or promotion.

But on to the meat: I learned a lot here, and not just about Xen. Although it's obvious to me now, I never thought about the teaching opportunity presented by writing a paravirtualized kernel - since you aren't dealing with real hardware, a lot of the nastiness is taken away, leaving you free to concentrate on the more general OS issues. As the foreword points out, this book could be used as a text in an OS kernel course.

The author writes very well, and explains difficult concepts with grace and ease. This was very enjoyable to read, with (for me) just the right level of detail. Definitely recommended for anyone with an interest in kernel internals, and of course if you specifically need to know about Xen, this really is "The Definitive Guide".

Best Xen book about internal working - 2008-01-11
Reviewer Rating:
This book is for anyone who wants to understand the inner workings of the Xen Hypervisor. There are also examples where to look at the Xen source code and some porting hints for bringing Xen to other platforms. If you look for a book about Xen administration or management then it is definitely not for you.

amazing book - 2009-03-08
Reviewer Rating:
Amazing book for anyone who wants to know about xen, in a very easy way.

Xen and Beyond - 2008-10-26
Reviewer Rating:
In the past VMWare dominated the market, we took its hypervisor as is and as granted (but of course cost money). The book actually opens our eyes to the inner working not only hypervisor, but also the x86 hardware and certain aspects of OS. Great for readers interested on system programming.
Longing that the author can cover more on HVM topics as well on 2nd edition.

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