When starting my Linux laptop I see KVM disabled by BIOS. What does this mean for encryption and security? There is no virtualizarion option in the BIOS. What can I do?
1 Answer
When starting my Linux laptop I see KVM disabled by BIOS.
KVM in this context stands for “Kernel Based Virtual Machine” and as this page explains:
KVM (for Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a full virtualization solution for Linux on x86 hardware containing virtualization extensions (Intel VT or AMD-V). It consists of a loadable kernel module, kvm.ko, that provides the core virtualization infrastructure and a processor specific module, kvm-intel.ko or kvm-amd.ko. KVM also requires a modified QEMU although work is underway to get the required changes upstream.
Using KVM, one can run multiple virtual machines running unmodified Linux or Windows images. Each virtual machine has private virtualized hardware: a network card, disk, graphics adapter, etc.
Or as Wikipedia more succinctly states:
KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a virtualization infrastructure for the Linux kernel that turns it into a hypervisor, which was merged into the Linux kernel mainline in February 2007.
That said you ask specifically:
What does this mean for encryption and security?
100% nothing. KVM is strictly functionality in the Linux kernel related to potentially allowing your system to be a hypervisor (aka: virtualization host). So even if your computer could be a hypervisor with the use of KVM even that would have 100% no impact on encryption and security.
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