Virtual machine monitor

A virtual machine monitor is a user-space process, one per virtual machine, that provides the devices and the machine model.

A virtual machine monitor is a user-space process, one per virtual machine, that provides the devices and the machine model. KVM, in the kernel, handles CPU and memory virtualization, and the monitor provides the rest. The split between KVM and the monitor matters, because the choice of monitor sets the device model of the virtual machine.