System and method to support port mapping for virtual machine based container

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11915025-B2
Application number	US-202016985859-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 5, 2020
Priority date	Jul 10, 2020
Publication date	Feb 27, 2024
Grant date	Feb 27, 2024

Abstract

When containers run in a guest operating system of a virtual machine running on the host computer system, the containers communicate with each other via ports of each container and a network. The ports of each container stay constant, but the virtual machine in which they run may change its IP address on the network when it is power-cycled. To avoid losing connection to the ports of the containers, a record table that associates static identifiers, such as MAC addresses, of the virtual machine with the container ports is maintained. The static identifiers of the virtual machines do not change and provide a way of identifying the virtual machine on which the virtual container was running before it was powered off. When the virtual machine is powered on, the linkage between the container port and the network can be re-established using the record table.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for running a container in a virtual machine, the method comprising:
after the virtual machine was previously linked to a communication port of the container based on a previous internet protocol (IP) address of the virtual machine and after the virtual machine was previously powered off:
powering on the virtual machine, the virtual machine having a static identifier;
obtaining an IP address for the virtual machine;
determining that the virtual machine was previously linked to the communication port of the container by:
searching a table that includes entries each of which contains a mapping from a respective communication port of a respective container to a respective static identifier of a respective virtual machine, and
finding an entry in the table for the static identifier of the virtual machine;

establishing a link between the IP address of the virtual machine and the communication port of the container based on the finding of the entry in the table for the static identifier of the virtual machine, wherein the IP address of the virtual machine and the previous IP address of the virtual machine are not included in the entry in the table; and
starting the container running in the virtual machine after the establishing of the link.

2. The method of claim 1 ,
wherein the static identifier of the virtual machine is a medium access control (MAC) address; and
wherein the MAC address of the virtual machine was stored in the table when the virtual machine was assigned to the container.

3. The method of claim 1 ,
wherein the virtual machine runs on a host computer system that includes a dynamic host communication protocol (DHCP) service; and
wherein the IP address for the virtual machine is obtained from the DHCP service.

4. The method of claim 3 ,
wherein the host computer system includes a port-forwarding service and a virtual switch; and
wherein the port-forwarding service forwards packets incoming to the host computer system to the communication port of the container via the virtual switch.

5. The method of claim 3 ,
wherein the host computer system includes a container runtime and a command -line interface;
wherein starting the container includes receiving a command via the command-line interface to the container runtime to start the container.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising pausing the container by:
stopping the container;
stopping and restarting the virtual machine in which the container runs, the restarted virtual machine having a new IP address;
starting the container; finding the entry in the table for the static identifier of the virtual machine;
associating the new IP address of the virtual machine with the communication port of the container; and
starting the container running in the virtual machine.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising permanently stopping the container by:
stopping the virtual machine in which the container runs;
deleting the container;
deleting the virtual machine; and
removing the mapping of the communication port of the container to the static identifier of the virtual machine from the table.

8. The method claim 7 ,
wherein the virtual machine runs on a host computer system that includes a container runtime and a command-line interface; and
wherein removing the mapping includes receiving a command to the container runtime via the command-line interface to remove the mapping.

9. A host computer system comprising:
one or more CPUs; and
a memory coupled to the one or more CPUs, the memory having loaded therein:
virtualization software for running one or more virtual machines, wherein at least a virtual machine of the virtual machines has running thereon a guest operating system, and wherein a container is to be run by the guest operating system;
wherein the virtualization software is configured to:
after the virtual machine was previously linked to a communication port of the container based on a previous internet protocol (IP) address of the virtual machine and after the virtual machine was previously powered off:
power on the virtual machine, the virtual machine having a static identifier;
obtain an IP address for the virtual machine;
determine that the virtual machine was previously assigned linked to the communication port of the container by:
searching a table that includes entries each of which contains a mapping from a respective communication port of a respective container to a respective static identifier of a respective virtual machine, and
finding an entry in the table for the static identifier of the virtual machine;

establish a link between the IP address of the virtual machine and the communication port of the container based on the finding of the entry in the table for the static identifier of the virtual machine, wherein the IP address of the virtual machine and the previous IP address of the virtual machine are not included in the entry in the table; and
start the container running in the virtual machine after the establishing of the link.

10. The host computer system of claim 9 ,
wherein the static identifier of the virtual machine is a medium access control (MAC) address; and
wherein the MAC address of the virtual machine was stored in the table when the virtual machine was assigned to the container.

11. The host computer system of claim 9 ,
wherein the memory has further loaded therein a dynamic host address protocol (DHCP) service;
wherein the IP address for the virtual machine is obtained from the DHCP service;
wherein the memory has further loaded therein a port-forwarding service and a virtual switch; and
wherein the port-forwarding service forwards packets incoming to the host computer system to the communication port of the container via the virtual switch.

12. The host computer system of claim 9 ,
wherein the memory has further loaded therein a container runtime and a command-line interface; and
wherein starting the container includes receiving a command via the command-line interface to the container runtime to start the container.

13. The host computer system of claim 9 ,
wherein the virtualization software is further configured to pause the container by:
stopping the container;
stopping and restarting the virtual machine in which the container runs, the restarted virtual machine having a new IP address;
starting the container; finding the entry in the table for the static identifier of the virtual machine;
associating the new IP address of the virtual machine with the communication port of the container; and
starting the container running in the virtual machine.

14. The host computer system of claim 9 ,
wherein the virtualization software is further configured to permanently stop the container by:
stopping the virtual machine in which the container runs;
deleting the container;
deleting the virtual machine; and
removing the mapping of the communication port of the container port to the static identifier of the virtual machine from the table.

15. A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions executable in a computer system, wherein the instructions when executed in the computer system cause the computer system to carry out a method for running a container in a virtual machine, the method comprising:
after the virtual machine was previously linked to a communication port of the container based on a previous internet protocol (IP) address of the virtual machine and after the virtual machine was previously powered off:
powering on the virtual machine, the virtual machine having a stat

Assignees

• Vmware Inc

Inventors

• Wu Junfei

Classifications

• G06F9/45558 Primary

  Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects · CPC title

• G06F2009/45562

  Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances · CPC title

• G06F2009/45575

  Starting, stopping, suspending or resuming virtual machine instances · CPC title

• G06F9/455 Primary

  Emulation; Interpretation; Software simulation, e.g. virtualisation or emulation of application or operating system execution engines · CPC title