From Rust-VMM to KataContainers: THE DEVELOPMENT OF H EXT. BASED SOFTWARE ECOSYSTEM

Our efforts to develop a complete Rust-based software stack for secure, cloud-native applications on the emerging RISC-V architecture. Despite the unavailability of current-generation hardware with H Extensions, Advanced Interrupt Architecture (AIA), and IOMMU support, we are proactively building and testing our stack in preparation for future hardware releases. Centered around the rust-vmm framework, we enable lightweight hypervisors like Dragonball, StratoVirt, Cloud-Hypervisor, and Firecracker—all designed to provide high performance, strong isolation, and virtualization-based security. Integrating these hypervisors with Kata Containers, we explore virtualization-based isolation of containerized workloads on RISC-V. By simulating hardware environments and leveraging forward-compatible software designs, we aim to be fully prepared for the introduction of real RISC-V hardware that meets RVA23 standard and RISC-V Server Platform specification, ensuring a seamless deployment path for confidential computing and secure cloud-native platforms.