Detecting a guest operating system crash on a virtual computing instance

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10430261-B2
Application number	US-201715677691-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 15, 2017
Priority date	Aug 15, 2017
Publication date	Oct 1, 2019
Grant date	Oct 1, 2019

Abstract

The subject matter described herein is generally directed towards detection and remediation of virtual computing instance (VCI) failure on host devices. Monitoring is performed to detect suspected failures of different guest operating systems, identify failure information, and perform remediation to provide high availability for the VCI.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system for detecting a guest operating system (OS) crash of a virtual computing instance (VCI), said system comprising:
at least one physical processor; and
at least one memory comprising computer program code, the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one physical processor, cause the physical processor to at least:
detect, by a hypervisor executing on a host, failure of the guest OS of the VCI, the VCI executing on the host in a cluster that has been configured for high availability, wherein detecting comprises:
intercepting a command from the guest OS to create a core dump of the guest OS, the guest OS issuing the command in response to failure of the guest OS by intercepting a hypercall from the guest OS to the hypervisor to create a reserved partition in the guest operating system for storage of the core dump, the hypercall occurring when the guest OS crashes, or
recognizing failure screen display information generated by the guest OS;

in response to detecting the failure of the guest OS, notify a high availability process on the hypervisor; and
perform, by the high availability process on the hypervisor, remediation for the VCI.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the computer program code is configured to intercept the command from the guest OS to create the core dump by intercepting a command from the guest OS to write the core dump to a file system mounted on the VCI.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the computer program code is configured to intercept the command from the guest OS to create the core dump by intercepting a command from the guest OS to write the core dump to firmware.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the computer program code is configured to recognize failure screen display information by:
detecting a display switch to a video graphics array (VGA) format, the guest OS displaying content in the VGA format; and
performing pattern matching by comparing selected portions of the displayed content in the VGA format to known display content that is displayed upon failure of the guest OS to identify a match, the selected portions including strings with values.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the computer program code is configured to detect failure of the guest OS by:
identifying a guest OS version; and
based on the identifying guest OS version, determining whether to intercept the command from the guest OS to create a core dump, or recognize the failure screen display information generated by the guest OS.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the computer program code is configured to perform remediation for the VCI by one or more of the following: resetting or powering off the VCI, waiting for the core dump to complete and then resetting or powering off the VCI, and restoring a state of the VCI by reverting the VCI to a previously-saved snapshot of the VCI.

7. A method for detecting a guest operating system (OS) crash of a virtual computing instance (VCI), said method comprising:
detecting, by a hypervisor executing on a host, failure of the guest OS of the VCI, the VCI executing on the host in a cluster that has been configured for high availability, wherein detecting comprises:
intercepting a command from the guest OS to create a core dump of the guest OS, the guest OS issuing the command in response to failure of the guest OS by intercepting a hypercall from the guest OS to the hypervisor to create a reserved partition in the guest operating system for storage of the core dump, the hypercall occurring when the guest OS crashes, or
recognizing failure screen display information generated by the guest OS;

in response to detecting the failure of the guest OS, notifying a high availability process on the hypervisor; and
performing, by the high availability process on the hypervisor, remediation for the VCI.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein intercepting a command from the guest OS to create a core dump comprises intercepting a command from the guest OS to write the core dump to a file system mounted on the VCI.

9. The method of claim 7 , wherein intercepting a command from the guest OS to create a core dump comprises intercepting a command from the guest OS to write the core dump to firmware.

10. The method of claim 7 , wherein recognizing failure screen display information comprises:
detecting a display switch to a video graphics array (VGA) format, the guest OS displaying content in the VGA format; and
performing pattern matching by comparing selected portions of the displayed content in the VGA format to known display content that is displayed upon failure of the guest OS to identify a match, the selected portions including strings with values.

11. The method of claim 7 , wherein detecting failure of the guest OS comprises:
identifying a guest OS version; and
based on the identifying guest OS version, determining whether to intercept the command from the guest OS to create a core dump, or recognize the failure screen display information generated by the guest OS.

12. The method of claim 7 , wherein performing remediation for the VCI comprises one or more of the following: resetting or powering off the VCI, waiting for the core dump to complete and then resetting or powering off the VCI, and restoring a state of the VCI by reverting the VCI to a previously-saved snapshot of the VCI.

13. One or more non-transitory computer storage media having computer-executable instructions that, upon execution by a processor, cause the processor to at least perform operations comprising:
detecting, by a hypervisor executing on a host, failure of the guest OS of the VCI, the VCI executing on the host in a cluster that has been configured for high availability, wherein detecting comprises:
intercepting a command from the guest OS to create a core dump of the guest OS, the guest OS issuing the command in response to failure of the guest OS by intercepting a hypercall from the guest OS to the hypervisor to create a reserved partition in the guest operating system for storage of the core dump, the hypercall occurring when the guest OS crashes, or
recognizing failure screen display information generated by the guest OS;

in response to detecting the failure of the guest OS, notifying a high availability process on the hypervisor; and
performing, by the high availability process on the hypervisor, remediation for the VCI.

14. The one or more non-transitory computer storage media of claim 13 , wherein intercepting a command from the guest OS to create a core dump comprises intercepting a hypercall from the guest OS to the hypervisor to create a reserved partition for storage of the core dump, the hypercall occurring when the guest OS crashes.

15. The one or more non-transitory computer storage media of claim 13 , wherein intercepting a command from the guest OS to create a core dump comprises intercepting a command from the guest OS to write the core dump to firmware.

16. The one or more non-transitory computer storage media of claim 13 , wherein recognizing failure screen display information comprises:
detecting a display switch to a video graphics array (VGA) format, the guest OS displaying content in the VGA format; and
performing pattern matching by comparing selected portions of the displayed content in the VGA format to known display content that is displayed upon failure of the guest OS to identify a match, the selected portions including strings with values.

17. The one or more non-transitory computer storage media of claim 13 , wherein detecting failure of the gu

Assignees

• Vmware Inc

Inventors

• Farkas Keith
• Christopher Kevin Scott
• Desai Aalap
• Krishnan Manoj
• Mendonca Jesse Andrew
• Patil Rohan

Classifications

• G06F11/1438

  Restarting or rejuvenating · CPC title

• G06F9/45545

  Guest-host, i.e. hypervisor is an application program itself, e.g. VirtualBox · CPC title

• G06F11/0712 Primary

  in a virtual computing platform, e.g. logically partitioned systems · CPC title

• G06F11/0778

  Dumping, i.e. gathering error/state information after a fault for later diagnosis · CPC title

• G06F11/0754

  by exceeding limits · CPC title