peRISCVcope: A Tiny Teaching-Oriented RISC-V Interpreter

The fast advances of computer systems translate into a growing demand of methodologies and tools to introduce those novelties into classes. Among the plethora of those advances, virtualization has become an essential technology in almost every relevant system stack, from connected cars to hyperscaled cloud servers. However, introducing those technologies into the classroom remains a challenging task because of the huge complexity of their software components that may hinder the learning process of students. peRISCVcope aims to help in this area by proposing a tiny yet powerful interpreter to dig into virtualization technologies, such as the implementation of trap&emulate hypervisors. With less than 2,000 lines of code, and thanks to the conciseness of the RV32I base instruction set of RISC-V, peRISCVcope enables students to make virtualization knowledge their own. This paper presents our experiences developing and testing a virtualization laboratory where students implement parts of an interpreter. After the practical experience, peRISCVcope has been proved as a useful pedagogical tool, and, most importantly, students have positively rated the experience.