Persisting an HTTP connection between application components

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11849003-B2
Application number	US-202217581984-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 24, 2022
Priority date	Jan 16, 2020
Publication date	Dec 19, 2023
Grant date	Dec 19, 2023

Abstract

Persistent connections are provided between components in a container environment. A hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) client may include a monitoring service and a proxy service. To obtain information regarding containers in the container environment, the monitoring service communicates a request to the proxy service. The proxy service in turn maintains a persistent connection for a session with a container management service using an authentication token, and communicates the request to the container management service during the session. The container management service obtains the requested information from the container(s) and returns the information in a response to the proxy service, which in turn returns the response to the monitoring service. The session is destroyed/ended only under certain error conditions—otherwise, the session between the proxy service and the container management system is kept persistent.

First claim

We claim:

1. A method for a user device to communicate with a host in a virtualized computing environment, the method comprising:
establishing, by a proxy in the user device, a persistent connection between the proxy and a container management service in the host using an authentication token, wherein the container management service is configured to communicate with containers, residing in the virtualized computing environment, that are managed by the container management service, wherein establishing the persistent connection comprises
acquiring the authentication token,
determining an identifier (ID) of a particular container to be monitored, and
using, by the proxy, the authentication token and the ID to establish a session on the persistent connection to obtain information about the particular container;
receiving, by the proxy, from a monitoring service in the user device, a request for information associated with at least one of the containers;
sending, by the proxy, to the container management service, the request for the information associated with the at least one of the containers;
receiving, by the proxy from the container management service, a response indicative validity of the request;
maintaining the persistent connection and the session, if the response is indicative of a valid request and contains the requested information, and sending, by the proxy, the response to the monitoring service; and
tearing down, by the proxy, the persistent connection, if the response is indicative of an error.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the response includes a response code and a response payload to the request.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the proxy and the monitoring service are components of a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) client that presents the requested information in a monitoring dashboard.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein establishing the persistent connection further comprises:
determining an address of the container management service;
and
using, by the proxy, the address to establish the session on the persistent connection.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the error includes at least one of: an authentication error, a gateway error, an unavailable service, a request error, or an error to propagate to the monitoring service for review by a system administrator.

6. The method of claim 5 , further comprising, in response to the authentication error:
requesting, by the proxy from the container management service, a new authentication token;
receiving, by the proxy from the container management service, the new authentication token;
using, by the proxy, the new authentication token to re-establish the persistent connection; and
sending, by the proxy to the container management service, the request for the information using the re-established persistent connection.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the proxy is a service that processes the request to determine path information and payload information that specifies details of the request.

8. A method in a virtualized computing environment to communicate using a connection, the method comprising:
establishing, by a proxy, a persistent connection between the proxy and a container management service using an authentication token, wherein the container management service is configured to communicate with containers, residing in the virtualized computing environment, that are managed by the container management service, wherein establishing the persistent connection comprises
acquiring the authentication token,
determining an identifier (ID) of a particular container to be monitored, and
using, by the proxy, the authentication token and the ID to establish a session on the persistent connection to obtain information about the particular container;
receiving, by the proxy from a monitoring service, a request for information associated with the containers;
sending, by the proxy to the container management service, the request for the information;
receiving, by the proxy from the container management service, a response including a response code and a response payload to the request via the persistent connection; and
maintaining the persistent connection and the session, if the response code is indicative of a valid request and the response payload contains the requested information, and sending, by the proxy, the response to the monitoring service.

9. The method of claim 8 , further comprising tearing down, by the proxy, the persistent connection, if the response code is indicative of an error.

10. The method of claim 8 , wherein the proxy and the monitoring service are components of a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) client that presents the requested information in a monitoring dashboard.

11. The method of claim 8 , wherein establishing the persistent connection further comprises:
determining an address of the container management service;
and
using, by the proxy, the address to establish the session on the persistent connection.

12. The method of claim 9 , wherein the error includes at least one of: an authentication error, a gateway error, an unavailable service, a request error, or an error to propagate to the monitoring service for review by a system administrator.

13. The method of claim 12 , further comprising, in response to the authentication error:
requesting, by the proxy from the container management service, a new authentication token;
receiving, by the proxy from the container management service, the new authentication token;
using, by the proxy, the new authentication token to re-establish the persistent connection; and
sending, by the proxy to the container management service, the request for the information using the re-established persistent connection.

14. The method of claim 8 , wherein the proxy is a service that processes the request to determine path information and payload information that specifies details of the request.

15. A device, comprising:
a processor to operate a proxy; and
a non-transitory computer-readable medium coupled to the processor and having instructions stored thereon, which in response to execution by the processor, cause the processor to perform or control performance of operations for the proxy to communicate using a connection in a virtualized computing environment, wherein the operations include:
establishing, by a proxy, a persistent connection between the proxy and a container management service using an authentication token, wherein the container management service is configured to communicate information with containers, residing in the virtualized computing environment, that are managed by the container management service;
establishing, by the proxy, a session on the persistent connection, wherein establishing the session comprises
acquiring the authentication token,
determining an identifier (ID) of a particular container to be monitored;
launching the proxy, and
using, by the proxy, the authentication token and the ID to establish the session to obtain information about the particular container;
receiving, by the proxy from a monitoring service, a request for the information;
sending, by the proxy to the container management service, the request for the information;
receiving, by the proxy from the container management service, a response to the request; and
maintaining the persistent connection and the session, if the response is indicative of a valid request and contains the requested information, and sending, by the proxy, the response to the monitoring service.

16. The device of claim 15 , wherein the r

Assignees

• Vmware Inc

Inventors

• Mitsov Georgi
• Mitevski Miroslav
• Nakova Tina
• Ivanov Zhan

Classifications

• H04L67/561 Primary

  Adding application-functional data or data for application control, e.g. adding metadata · CPC title

• H04L9/3213 Primary

  using tickets or tokens, e.g. Kerberos (network architectures or network communication protocols for entities authentication using tickets in a packet data network H04L63/0807) · CPC title

• H04L43/08

  Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters · CPC title

• H04L67/02

  based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP] · CPC title

• H04L63/08

  for authentication of entities (cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication H04L9/32) · CPC title