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QNX Hypervisor
The QNX Hypervisor allows you to run multiple OSs on a target system so you can separate critical and non-critical functions, support a wide variety of applications, and reduce hardware costs.
QNX Hypervisor User's Guide
Building a QNX Hypervisor system
This chapter explains how to build (assemble) a QNX Hypervisor system and transfer a bootable image to a supported target platform.
Building guests
When you build guests to run in a QNX virtualized environment, you must build them for the appropriate hardware architecture, and configure the VMs in which they will run.
Building QNX guests
Just like QNX OS systems built to run directly on hardware, a QNX OS system built to run as a guest in a QNX hypervisor environment uses a BSP, which supplies the architecture-specific components.

QNX Momentics IDE User's Guide
This User's Guide describes version 7.1 of the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that's part of the QNX Momentics tool suite.
QNX Software Development Platform
QNX SDP is a cross-compiling and debugging environment, including an IDE and command-line tools, for building binary images and programs for target boards running QNX Neutrino 7.1.
QNX Hypervisor
The QNX Hypervisor allows you to run multiple OSs on a target system so you can separate critical and non-critical functions, support a wide variety of applications, and reduce hardware costs.
- QNX Hypervisor for Safety User's Guide
- QNX Hypervisor for Safety Virtual Device Developer's Guide
- QNX Hypervisor for Safety Virtual Device Developer's API Reference
- QNX Hypervisor User's Guide
  - Understanding QNX Virtual Environments
    QNX hypervisors are designed to meet the expectations of a hypervisor specified by the Popek/Goldberg Theorem.
  - QNX Hypervisor: Protection Features
    This chapter explains the main features used by the QNX Hypervisor to protect itself and its guests. Many of these features are part of the design, while others are configurable.
  - Configuration
    A QNX hypervisor, its qvm processes that create the VMs in which guests run, and these guests must be configured to work together.
  - Building a QNX Hypervisor system
    This chapter explains how to build (assemble) a QNX Hypervisor system and transfer a bootable image to a supported target platform.
    - Methods of building a QNX Hypervisor system
      Building a QNX Hypervisor system entails adding virtualization to a QNX Neutrino microkernel system.
    - Supported build environments
      The QNX Hypervisor 2.2 must be built in a QNX SDP 7.1 environment, and guests must be built in their own environments.
    - Getting the host components
      The components you need to build a hypervisor system are available from the QNX Software Center.
    - Building the host
      After you have downloaded the hypervisor package and configured your build environment, all of the components needed to build the hypervisor host should be on your development host system at $QNX_TARGET.
    - Building guests
      When you build guests to run in a QNX virtualized environment, you must build them for the appropriate hardware architecture, and configure the VMs in which they will run.
      - Building QNX guests
        Just like QNX OS systems built to run directly on hardware, a QNX OS system built to run as a guest in a QNX hypervisor environment uses a BSP, which supplies the architecture-specific components.
      - Building Linux and Android guests
        QNX hypervisors support Linux and Android guests, provided these guests are built for virtual hardware that the hypervisor can present to the guest in a VM.
    - The HHBSP framework
      The hypervisor host BSP (HHBSP) provides a convenient framework for building reference QNX hypervisor systems.
    - Hypervisor disk images
      If you make changes to the hypervisor host or the guests, you need to create a new bootable disk image with the hypervisor system and transfer it to your target.
    - Preparing your target board
      This section explains how to prepare supported hardware boards to boot and run a QNX hypervisor system.
    - Transferring the disk image
      These instructions explain how to get a QNX hypervisor system onto a supported hardware platform.
  - Booting and Shutting Down
    This chapter describes how to boot and shut down a QNX hypervisor system.
  - Using Virtual Devices, Networking, and Memory Sharing
    This chapter describes how guests can discover and connect to vdevs and how they can use important hypervisor capabilities, such as networking and memory sharing.
  - Monitoring and Troubleshooting
    This chapter describes some tools and techniques you can use to monitor and troubleshoot your hypervisor system.
  - Performance Tuning
    This chapter describes common sources of overhead in a QNX hypervisor system, and strategies for reducing this overhead and optimizing system performance.
  - VM Configuration Reference
    When you specify options to configure a qvm process, you are assembling and configuring the components of a virtual machine (VM) in which a guest will run.
  - Virtual Device Reference
    This chapter presents the virtual devices (vdevs) delivered with QNX hypervisors, and describes how to configure these vdevs.
  - Utilities and Drivers Reference
    This chapter describes the utilities and drivers delivered with the QNX hypervisor.
  - Terminology
    The following terms are used throughout the QNX hypervisor documentation.
QNX Software in the Cloud
QNX Software in the Cloud enables developers to use the QNX software in Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure (Azure).
QNX Advanced Virtualization Frameworks User's Guide
This User's Guide is aimed at all systems integrators and developers who want to design and build embedded systems using the QNX Advanced Virtualization Frameworks.
Typographical Conventions, Support, and Licensing
This section describes the typographical conventions used throughout the documentation and explains how to obtain technical support.

Building QNX guests

Just like QNX OS systems built to run directly on hardware, a QNX OS system built to run as a guest in a QNX hypervisor environment uses a BSP, which supplies the architecture-specific components.

The qvm configuration sets up the VM in which a guest will run. In most cases, building a QNX guest requires only building a bootable image, as you would for a non-virtualized environment.

Note:

When building QNX guests:

Remember that the VM in which a guest will run must match the guest's expectations: architecture, board-specifics, memory and CPUs, devices, etc. (see Assembling and configuring VMs in the Configuration chapter).
Be sure to use the architecture-specific guest BSP for your guest's OS version (e.g., QNX Neutrino 7.1) and your board's architecture, not the board-specific board BSP.
If you add pass-through devices to your guest and these devices require drivers from the board-specific BSP, copy these drivers into the appropriate locations in the guest BSP's prebuilt/ directory.

Downloading QNX guest BSPs

Architecture-specific QNX guest BSPs are available from the QNX Software Center; for example:

Figure 1Architecture-specific guest BSPs in the QNX Software Center.

Building the QNX guest

To build the QNX guest, assuming that you have set up your build environment on your development host system:

Set up your environment variables so you can build a QNX OS image in your guest BSP's root directory.
If you haven't already done so, from the QNX Software Center, download the BSP for an x86 or ARM QNX guest.
Unzip and place the QNX guest BSP in a convenient location. For example:
```
# unzip ~/Downloads/BSP_hypervisor-guest-x86_br-710_be-710_SVN917988_JBN3.zip -d guest_bsp
```
where guest_bsp is the location where you placed your guest BSP.
If you make changes to your guest BSP, from the guest BSP root directory, run make.

You can now add the guest IFS to a bootable disk image with the host and transfer it to your target (see Hypervisor disk images in this chapter).

Page updated: March 12, 2026