RFC: Linux Kernel Gains Multikernel Architecture Support
2025-09-19
Cong Wang submitted an RFC patch series introducing multikernel architecture support to the Linux kernel. This allows multiple independent kernel instances to coexist and communicate on a single physical machine, each running on dedicated CPU cores while sharing hardware resources. This improves fault isolation, enhances security, offers better resource utilization than traditional VMs, and potentially enables zero-downtime kernel updates. The implementation leverages the kexec infrastructure and a dedicated IPI framework for inter-kernel communication. This is a foundational RFC, primarily seeking feedback on the high-level design.
(lwn.net)
Development
Multikernel