Vex Virtual Extension Framework

Abstract: Extensions to operating systems or software application can be hosted in virtual environments to fault isolate the extension. A generic proxy extension invoked by a host process can coordinate the invocation of an appropriate extension in a virtual process that can provide the same support API as the host process. Furthermore, a user mode context can be provided to the extension in the virtual process, through memory copying or page table modification. In addition, the virtual process, especially a virtual operating system process running on a virtual machine, can be efficiently started by cloning a coherent state. A coherent state can be created when a virtual machine starts up, or when the computing device starts up appropriate parameters are observed and saved. Alternatively, the operating system can create a coherent state by believing there is an additional CPU during the boot process.

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