This release has been tracked in v48.0 group of our roadmap project.

Experimental fw_cfg Device Support

This feature enables passing configuration data and files, such as VM
boot configurations (kernel, kernel cmdline, e820 memory map, and ACPI
tables), from the host to the guest. (#7117)

Experimental ivshmem Device Support

Support for inter-VM shared memory has been added. For more information,
please refer to the ivshmem documentation. (#6703)

Firmware Boot Support on riscv64

In addition to direct kernel boot, firmware boot support has been added
on riscv64 hosts. (#7249)

Increased vCPU Limit on x86_64/kvm

The maximum number of supported vCPUs on x86_64 hosts using KVM has been
raised from 254 to 8192. (#7299)

Improved Block Performance with Small Block Sizes

Performance for virtio-blk with small block sizes (16KB and below)
is enhanced via submitting async IO requests in batches. (#7146)

Faster VM Pause Operation

The VM pause operation now is significantly faster particularly for VMs
with a large number of vCPUs. (#7290)

Updated Documentation on Windows Guest Support

Our Windows documentation now includes instructions to run Windows 11
guests, in addition to Windows Server guests. (#7218)

Policy on AI Generated Code

We will decline any contributions known to contain contents generated or
derived from using Large Language Models (LLMs). Details can be found
in our contributing documentation. (#7162)

Removed SGX Support

The SGX support has been removed, as announced in the deprecation notice two
release cycles ago. (#7093)

Notable Bug Fixes

• Seccomp filter fixes with glibc v2.42 (vmm: allow TCGETS2/TCSETS2 where TCGETS/TCSETS are #7327)
• Various fixes related to (vmm: fix landlock on aarch64 #7331, vmm: fix vsock with landlock #7334, vmm: error if landlock can't be enabled #7335)

Contributors

Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to our release:

• Alex Orozco alexorozco@google.com
• Alyssa Ross hi@alyssa.is
• Anirudh Rayabharam anrayabh@microsoft.com
• Bo Chen bchen@crusoe.ai
• Demi Marie Obenour demiobenour@gmail.com
• Lucas Grosche lucas.grosche@cyberus-technology.de
• Muminul Islam muislam@microsoft.com
• Oliver Anderson oliver.anderson@cyberus-technology.de
• Peter Oskolkov posk@google.com
• Philipp Schuster philipp.schuster@cyberus-technology.de
• Ruoqing He heruoqing@iscas.ac.cn
• Shubham Chakrawar schakrawar@crusoe.ai
• Songqian Li sionli@tencent.com
• Wei Liu liuwe@microsoft.com