Whitepaper: Intel Virtualization Technology Specification for the IA-32 Intel Architecture

This whitepaper is quoted on the new Intel DevX article posted here, describing how Intel Virtualization Technology solves virtual machines privileges conflict.

It’s highly technical and could be useless for many, but gives you a great insight of how Intel VT really works:

This documents describes Intel Virtualization Technology for IA-32 processors, referred to as VT-x. VT-x constitutes a set of virtual-machine extensions (VMX) that support virtualization of processor hardware for multiple software environments by using virtual machines.

This document is organized as follows:

  • Chapter 1 gives an overview of the virtual-machine extensions.
  • Chapter 2 details the virtual-machine control structure (VMCS) and its usage.
  • Chapter 3 details processor behavior in VMX non-root operation.
  • Chapter 4 details the operation of VM entries.
  • Chapter 5 details the operation of VM exits.
  • Chapter 6 details VMX capability reporting.
  • Chapter 7 provides a reference for the new VMX instructions.
  • Chapter 8 details interactions between VMX operation and system-management mode (SMM).

Download it here.