Kernel Modification

[mkatsa]

Hello, I first tried to install the emulator through a virtual machine, but as far as I see there are some missing points to the underlying architecture that the VM sees, despite the fact that I have a processor with microarchitecture compatible to HME. I want to ask whether the HME/AHME modifies the kernel of the target machine?

[Gumi-presentation-by-Dzh]

First, HME really can't support virtualized environments because it relies strongly on the NUMA architecture and Intel PMU modules, which are largely unsupported by virtual machines. Secondly HME is divided into two components, the first one is the hybrid memory emulation system, which relies only on microarchitecture (NUMA architecture and Intel PMU). The second component is the memory allocation system, AHME, which modifies Glibc and the kernel in order to provide malloc functions. If you do not wish to modify the kernel, you can use the simulation part of HME + NUMA's own memory allocation function interface (libnuma) to work with it. However, this would face some of libnuma's own shortcomings, such as memory wastage and coarse-graining issues. But this does not affect the use of the simulation itself.