KVM and Virsh on Linux: Complete Guide to Virtual Machines [2026]

KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a type-1 hypervisor built directly into the Linux kernel since version 2.6.20 (2007). It turns the Linux kernel into a bare-metal hypervisor — no host OS overhead, no extra abstraction layer — just your hardware, the kernel, and virtual machines running at near-native performance. On top of KVM sits libvirt , a management daemon that provides a stable API and…