The Linux system identifies hardware devices as special files, called device files. There are three
different classifications of device files:
? Character
? Block
? Network
Character device files are for devices that can only handle data one character at a time. Most types
of modems and terminals are created as character files. Block files are for devices that can handle
data in large blocks at a time, such as disk drives.
The network file types are used for devices that use packets to send and receive data. This includes network cards and a special loopback device that allows the Linux system to communicate with itself using common network programming protocols.
Hardware Requirements for Parallels Virtuozzo Containers
Parallels Virtuozzo Containers for Linux
CPUs: x86, ia64, AMD64, EM64T, Itanium
Memory:2 GB minimum. More recommended. The required amount depends on the total number of Containers you wish to run on the Node (minimum 50 MB per Container).
Hard disk space:20 GB or more free disk space. The required amount depends on the size of the software to be installed inside Containers.
How to check if CPU supports hardware virtualization (VT technology)
To run KVM, you need a processor that supports virtualization. For Intel processors this extension has name INTEL-VT, for AMD processors it has name AMD-V.
To see if your processor supports one of these technologies, please run the following command under Linux:
# egrep ‘(vmx|svm)’ /proc/cpuinfo
If nothing is printed, it means that your CPU does not support hardware virtualization. Otherwise, it does – but you still need to make sure that virtualization is enabled in the BIOS. If the svm flag is returned then your processor supports AMD-V or if the vmx flag is returned then your processor supports Intel VT.
Retrieving Hardware Information
To retrieve information on system’s hardware like vendor, manufacturer, product, S/N, etc. the following command can be used:
The dmidecode command reads the information from the system BIOS, see also
There are a few other commands you might want to check out which list installed hardware components:
dmesg
lsdev
lshal
lspci
lsusb
lsscsi
