Manageable external wake of virtual machines

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9262195-B2
Application number	US-201213407706-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 28, 2012
Priority date	Feb 28, 2012
Publication date	Feb 16, 2016
Grant date	Feb 16, 2016

Abstract

A system and method for waking hibernating virtual machines (VMs) are disclosed. In particular, a host operating system (OS) may decide to wake a hibernating VM in response to a message received by the host, such as an incoming networking packet, a message generated by an external event (e.g., a hardware device fault, an interrupt, etc.), etc. In accordance with one embodiment, the decision whether to wake a hibernating VM may be based on a sender of the message.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
receiving, by a processor of a computer system while a virtual machine that is hosted by the computer system is asleep, a packet that is directed to a port number of the computer system, wherein the packet comprises a cookie; and
determining, by the processor, whether to wake the virtual machine in view of the port number and the cookie.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the packet is to send data to the computer system in accordance with a network communication protocol.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the computer system is to host a plurality of virtual machines, and wherein the packet is directed to a hardware device of the computer system, and wherein the determination whether to wake the virtual machine is also based on whether the hardware device is mapped to a virtual device of the virtual machine.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the packet contains a password, and wherein the determination whether to wake the virtual machine is also in view of the password.

5. An apparatus comprising:
a memory; and
a processor of a computer system operatively coupled to the memory, the processor to:
receive, while a virtual machine that is hosted by the computer system is asleep, a packet that is directed to a port number of the computer system, wherein the packet comprises a cookie; and
determine whether to wake the virtual machine in view of the port number and the cookie.

6. The apparatus of claim 5 , wherein the packet is to send data to the computer system in accordance with a network communication protocol.

7. The apparatus of claim 5 , wherein the computer system is to host a plurality of virtual machines, and wherein the packet is directed to a hardware device of the computer system, and wherein the determination whether to wake the virtual machine is also based on whether the hardware device is mapped to a virtual device of the virtual machine.

8. The apparatus of claim 5 , wherein the packet contains a password, and wherein the determination whether to wake the virtual machine is also in view of the password.

9. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having instructions that, when executed by a processing device of a computer system, cause the processing device to:
receive, while a virtual machine that is hosted by the computer system is asleep, a packet that is directed to a port number of the computer system, wherein the packet comprises a cookie; and
determine whether to wake the virtual machine in view of the port number and the cookie.

10. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 9 , wherein the packet is to send data to the computer system in accordance with a network communication protocol.

11. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 9 , wherein the computer system is to host a plurality of virtual machines, and wherein the packet is directed to a hardware device of the computer system, and wherein the determination whether to wake the virtual machine is also based on whether the hardware device is mapped to a virtual device of the virtual machine.

12. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 9 , wherein the packet contains a password, and wherein the determination whether to wake the virtual machine is also in view of the password.

Assignees

• Tsirkin Michael
• Laor Dor
• Red Hat Israel Ltd

Inventors

• Tsirkin Michael
• Laor Dor

Classifications

• G06F9/45558 Primary

  Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects · CPC title

• G06F2009/45575

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

• G06F2009/45595

  Network integration; Enabling network access in virtual machine instances · CPC title