1# Introduction 2 3The crosvm project is a hosted (a.k.a. 4[type-2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervisor#Classification)) virtual machine monitor similar 5to QEMU-KVM or VirtualBox. 6 7It is a VMM that can run untrusted operating systems in a sandboxed environment. crosvm focuses on 8safety first and foremost, both in its language of choice (Rust) and through its 9[runtime sandbox](appendix/sandboxing.md) system. Each virtual device (disk, network, etc) is by 10default executed inside a [minijail](appendix/minijail.md) sandbox, isolated from the rest. In case 11of an exploit or vulnerability, this sandbox prevents an attacker from escaping and doing harmful 12things to the host operating system. On top of that, crosvm also relies on a 13[syscall security policy](appendix/seccomp.md) that prevents unwanted system calls from being 14executed by a compromised device. 15 16Initially it was intended to be used with KVM and Linux, but it now also supports 17[other types of platforms](https://github.com/google/crosvm/tree/main/hypervisor/src). 18 19To run crosvm all that is needed is an operating system image (a root file system plus a kernel) and 20crosvm will run it through the platform's hypervisor. See the 21[example usage](running_crosvm/example_usage.md) page to get started or visit the 22[building crosvm](building_crosvm/index.md) section to compile your own from source. 23 24- [Announcements](https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/crosvm-announce) 25- [Developer Mailing List](https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/crosvm-dev) 26- [#crosvm on matrix.org](https://matrix.to/#/#crosvm:matrix.org) 27- [Source code](https://chromium.googlesource.com/crosvm/crosvm/) 28 - [GitHub mirror](https://github.com/google/crosvm) 29 - [API documentation](https://crosvm.dev/doc/crosvm/), useful for searching API. 30 - Files for this book are under 31 [/docs/](https://chromium.googlesource.com/crosvm/crosvm/+/HEAD/docs/). 32- [Public issue tracker](https://issuetracker.google.com/issues?q=status:open%20componentid:1161302) 33 - For Googlers: See [go/crosvm#filing-bugs](https://goto.google.com/crosvm#filing-bugs). 34 35 36
