Google develops environment Microfuchsia, which includes a stripped-down version of the Fuchsia operating system optimized for running in virtual machines on the Android platform. The Android code base is currently undergoing changes to support Microfuchsia. Google has launched virtual machines with Microfuchsia using the Android Virtualization Framework (AVF), implemented with the KVM hypervisor and crosvm.
Prior to this, Google utilized AVF to create a minimalistic version of Android for virtual machines, as well as experimenting with running guest systems like Chromium OS. The motivation behind preparing Microfuchsia has not been officially disclosed, but it is speculated that Google is working on a more efficient and minimalist environment for isolated service launches in Android, consuming fewer resources than the Linux-based Microdroid environment.
Fuchsia is built on the Zircon microkernel, derived from the LK project and tailored for various device classes, including smartphones and PCs. Zircon expands on LK by enhancing process support and implementing user-level security with capability-based security processing. Device drivers are implemented as dynamic libraries loaded in user space by the Device Manager process (DEVMG).
During the boot process, Fuchsia employs an advanced system of sandbox isolation to ensure security, preventing new processes from accessing the kernel directly. New processes are restricted from executing code and are only allowed to allocate memory. Namespace mechanisms are used for resource access.