Hypervisor setup and operation cycle

  1. Enable: System software enables HW VT and becomes a hypervisor
  2. Set up: The hypervisor creates and sets up a "context structure" representing a guest
  3. Switch to: The hypervisor asks the processor to load the context structure into hardware-registers and start running in guest-mode
  4. Return from: The processor switches back to the host-mode on certain events in the guest-mode
  5. Handle: The hypervisor typically emulates the event and does (3), repeating the process.