Is user mode linux (UML) project stopped?

6
votes

For some educational project I need to work with user-mode-linux (UML).

Based on the homepage of UML, it seems that the project was stopped at 2004. However, the author of project was hired by Intel in 2004 to work on UML full-time. Is the project dead or continued by Intel (or open source community) with new name?

2
virtualizationuser-mode-linux

2 Answers

6
votes

While it does look stale, it still works as of v4.9.6. Tested with this setup: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/73203/how-to-create-rootfs-for-user-mode-linux-on-fedora-18/372207#372207

If you do:

git log arch/um

it shows a few hits per month, mostly maintenance to keep up with the rest of the kernel.

I believe that the reason for the slowdown is due to the rise of other better virtualization methods, specially:

  • KVM, which QEMU can use with -enable-kvm, useful for full system simulation
  • cgroups and namespaces, which used by Docker, useful for lightweight containers

Both of these methods execute most CPU instructions directly on the host, and are therefore very fast.

Those two methods are very likely better options for most applications than UML nowadays.

See also: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/127829/why-would-someone-want-to-run-usermode-linux-uml

2
votes

UML support is now part of mainstream Linux kernel. Search string UML from here: https://github.com/torvalds/linux