Prepare for the CompTIA PenTest+ Exam. Enhance your skills with practice questions and detailed explanations. Ace your test and advance your cybersecurity career!

Each practice test/flash card set has 50 randomly selected questions from a bank of over 500. You'll get a new set of questions each time!

Practice this question and more.


In a host-based virtualization model, what is installed onto a host operating system?

  1. Type I hypervisor

  2. Type II hypervisor

  3. Type III hypervisor

  4. Virtual Machine Monitor

The correct answer is: Type II hypervisor

In a host-based virtualization model, a Type II hypervisor is installed on top of a host operating system. This means that the hypervisor relies on the underlying host OS to manage hardware resources and provide the necessary support for virtual machines. The Type II hypervisor acts as an intermediary, allowing multiple guest operating systems to run simultaneously on the host system. This setup is particularly beneficial for environments where users need to run different operating systems on a single physical machine without the need for dedicated hardware resources for each OS. The virtualization layer handles the interaction between the host OS and the guest OS, making it easier to manage and deploy virtual environments, especially for users who are not looking for bare-metal performance. In contrast, a Type I hypervisor does not require a host operating system because it runs directly on the hardware. This model tends to be used in enterprise settings where performance and scalability are critical, as it can allocate resources more efficiently. The term "Type III hypervisor" does not traditionally exist in standard classifications, and "Virtual Machine Monitor" is a concept that can refer to either Type I or Type II hypervisors, but it does not specifically define the host-based model.