A New Inter-VM Communication Methods in the Jailhouse Hypervisor

In the current Jailhouse Hypervisor solution, the communication mechanism between virtual machines requires a deep understanding of Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) driver and the Inter-VmShared Memory (IVSHMEM) protocol, which adds complexity and development costs to the system. Additionally, users are restricted by this solution, which limits portability and customization of protocols. To address these issues, we propose a simplified communication mechanism that utilizes shared memory and hypercall techniques to achieve data transmission and event notification between virtual machines. Users can port or customize communication protocols based on this mechanism. In Linux, users only need to have knowledge of simple character device drivers to utilize this model, while in a real-time operating system (RTOS), direct function calls suffice. The experimental results on the OK3568 platform demonstrate that the proposed mechanism introduces remarkably low transmission latency when sending data ranging from 1 byte to 2 kilobytes. This makes it highly suitable for porting or customizing protocols based on this mechanism. Additionally, it exhibits characteristics of scalability and simplicity, further enhancing its usability.