KubeSwift, Kubernetes-Native VM Orchestration on Cloud Hypervisor

KubeSwift, a Kubernetes-native VM orchestration platform built on Cloud Hypervisor, has been released with support for Linux and Windows guests, GPU passthrough, live migration, and 13 custom resource definitions for managing VM fleets, snapshots, and multi-cluster deployments.

KubeSwift runs virtual machines as Kubernetes workloads. You define a VM with a custom resource; controllers reconcile it into a pod; inside that pod, swiftletd launches a hypervisor. Cloud Hypervisor https://www.cloud-hypervisor.org/ is the hypervisor for nearly every workload — Linux and Windows guests, traditiona disk VMs and kernel boot microVMs , PCIe GPU passthrough, snapshots, and live migration. QEMU is used for the moment as a secondary runtime only for HGX SXM multi-GPU NVSwitch topologies, where CUDA requires a full PCIe hierarchy that Cloud Hypervisor's flat model does not currently provide. We are tracking upstream for this capability. Boot paths — disk boot from cloud images Linux and Windows and direct kernel boot from OCI artifacts sub-second microVMs . GPU passthrough — whole-GPU VFIO passthrough with two allocation backends: the native SwiftGPU model discovery DaemonSet + profiles or Kubernetes DRA /kubeswift-io/kubeswift/blob/main/docs/gpu/dra-allocation.md ResourceClaims. PCIe GPUs on Cloud Hypervisor; HGX SXM on QEMU. Networking — tap + bridge + DHCP with the guest IP surfaced in status; multi-NIC via Multus; SR-IOV NIC passthrough; OVN Backend supported: OVN-Kubernetes and multi-node L2 with IP-preserving cross-node live migration kube-ovn primary-on-NAD — see . docs/networking/ovn-l2-install.md Services — expose guest ports as Kubernetes Services via spec.network.ports ClusterIP/NodePort/LoadBalancer , a load-balanced Service across pool replicas via SwiftGuestPool.spec.service , and a VM→cluster egress reachability probe surfaced as EgressReady . Storage — per-guest root-disk cloning sized from a class; optional data disks blank/sized, image-backed, or attached PVC ; RWX+Block for live-migration-capable volumes. Snapshots & clones — disk-only CSI and memory+disk local/S3 snapshots, scheduled snapshots, and cloneFromSnapshot for fast VM fan-out. OCI registry artifacts — golden VM images SwiftImage.spec.source.oci + swiftctl image publish , cosign-signed with verify-on-pull and VM snapshots / full-state cold migration SwiftSnapshot backend.type: oci stored in any OCI registry, for cross-cluster and edge distribution. Migration — offline migration on any storage, and live migration sub-second downtime with optional mTLS transport and kubectl drain integration. Fleets — SwiftGuestPool gives ReplicaSet-style scaling with rolling updates, topology spread, and a PVC per replica. Operations — swiftctl for console/SSH/lifecycle/describe; Prometheus metrics and Grafana dashboards across every feature; cloud-init via NoCloud; security-hardened containers drop-ALL, no privileged . | CRD | Short | API group | Scope | Purpose | |---|---|---|---|---| | SwiftGuest | sg | swift.kubeswift.io | Namespaced | A VM instance | | SwiftGuestClass | sgc | swift.kubeswift.io | Cluster | CPU/memory/disk template | | SwiftGuestPool | sgpool | swift.kubeswift.io | Namespaced | Fleet of identical VMs | | SwiftImage | si | image.kubeswift.io | Namespaced | Disk image source | | SwiftSeedProfile | ssp | seed.kubeswift.io | Namespaced | cloud-init NoCloud config | | SwiftKernel | sk | kernel.kubeswift.io | Namespaced | Kernel + initramfs OCI artifact | | SwiftGPUProfile | sgp | gpu.kubeswift.io | Namespaced | GPU passthrough request native backend | | SwiftGPUNode | sgn | gpu.kubeswift.io | Cluster | Per-node GPU inventory | | SwiftSnapshot | ssnap | snapshot.kubeswift.io | Namespaced | VM snapshot disk or memory+disk | | SwiftRestore | srst | snapshot.kubeswift.io | Namespaced | Restore from a snapshot | | SwiftSnapshotSchedule | — | snapshot.kubeswift.io | Namespaced | Cron-scheduled snapshots + keep-N | | SwiftMigration | smig | migration.kubeswift.io | Namespaced | Move a guest between nodes | | Cluster | ksc | fleet.kubeswift.io | Namespaced | Member cluster federated by the gateway hub | 13 CRDs, all v1alpha1 . Start at the documentation index . Common entry points: Quickstart /kubeswift-io/kubeswift/blob/main/docs/quickstart.md — boot your first VM Architecture /kubeswift-io/kubeswift/blob/main/docs/architecture.md — components, boot paths, status model CRD reference /kubeswift-io/kubeswift/blob/main/docs/crds.md · API overview /kubeswift-io/kubeswift/blob/main/docs/api/overview.md GPU passthrough /kubeswift-io/kubeswift/blob/main/docs/gpu-passthrough.md · GPU via DRA /kubeswift-io/kubeswift/blob/main/docs/gpu/dra-allocation.md Networking operations /kubeswift-io/kubeswift/blob/main/docs/networking/operations-guide.md Snapshots /kubeswift-io/kubeswift/blob/main/docs/snapshots/csi-snapshots.md · Live migration /kubeswift-io/kubeswift/blob/main/docs/migration/overview.md swiftctl CLI /kubeswift-io/kubeswift/blob/main/docs/swiftctl.md · Observability /kubeswift-io/kubeswift/blob/main/docs/observability/README.md Install Helm/OCI /kubeswift-io/kubeswift/blob/main/docs/install/helm-oci.md make build Go binaries make build-images container images make deploy apply CRDs + deploy the controller go test ./... Go tests cargo test Rust tests from rust/ Pre-1.0; the v1alpha1 API may change between releases. Host requirement: x86 64 Linux nodes with /dev/kvm KVM . Licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 /kubeswift-io/kubeswift/blob/main/LICENSE AGPL-3.0 .