Using different TCP/IP stacks for different hypervisor services

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9832112-B2
Application number	US-201414231705-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 31, 2014
Priority date	Mar 31, 2014
Publication date	Nov 28, 2017
Grant date	Nov 28, 2017

Abstract

Multiple TCP/IP stack processors on a host. The multiple TCP/IP stack processors are provided independently of TCP/IP stack processors implemented by virtual machines on the host. The TCP/IP stack processors provide multiple different default gateway addresses for use with multiple processes. The default gateway addresses allow a service to communicate across an L3 network. Processes outside of virtual machines that utilize the TCP/IP stack processor on a first host can benefit from using their own gateway, and communicate with their peer process on a second host, regardless of whether the second host is located within the same subnet or a different subnet. The multiple TCP/IP stack processors can use separately allocated resources. Separate TCP/IP stack processors can be provided for each of multiple tenants on the host. Separate loopback interfaces of multiple TCP/IP stack processors can be used to create separate containment for separate sets of processes on a host.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of generating IP packets for a first hypervisor process running on a first electronic computing device that implements a generic TCP/IP stack processor and at least one dedicated TCP/IP stack processor, wherein the first hypervisor process operates outside of any virtual machine on the first electronic computing device, the method comprising:
retrieving configuration data for the dedicated TCP/IP stack processor, wherein the configuration data comprises a designation of a first default gateway for the dedicated TCP/IP stack processor that is different from a second default gateway for the generic TCP/IP stack processor, wherein the generic and dedicated TCP/IP stack processors are not implemented by virtual machines;
implementing the dedicated TCP/IP stack processor with the first default gateway;
processing data using the dedicated TCP/IP stack processor to generate an IP packet with an IP address not in a routing table of the dedicated TCP/IP stack processor; and
sending the IP packet to the IP address of the first default gateway, wherein sending the IP packet is part of a communication between the first hypervisor process and a second peer hypervisor process running on a second electronic computing device through the first default gateway.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first and second hypervisor processes are virtual machine migrator processes.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
sending IP packets from the dedicated TCP/IP stack processor out of the electronic computing device through a first physical network interface card (pNIC); and
sending IP packets from the generic TCP/IP stack processor out of the electronic computing device through a second pNIC.

4. The method of claim 3 further comprising:
processing the IP packets from the dedicated TCP/IP stack processor with a virtual switch that sends the IP packets from the dedicated TCP/IP stack processor to the first pNIC; and
processing the IP packets from the generic TCP/IP stack processor with the virtual switch that sends the IP packets from the generic TCP/IP stack processor to the second pNIC.

5. The method of claim 3 further comprising:
processing the IP packets from the dedicated TCP/IP stack processor with a first virtual switch that sends the IP packets from the dedicated TCP/IP stack processor to the first pNIC; and
processing the IP packets from the generic TCP/IP stack processor with a second virtual switch that sends the IP packets from the generic TCP/IP stack processor to the second pNIC.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the dedicated TCP/IP stack processor is a first dedicated TCP/IP stack processor and the IP packet is a first IP packet, the method further comprising:
retrieving configuration data for a second dedicated TCP/IP stack processor, wherein the configuration data for the second dedicated TCP/IP stack processor comprises a designation of a third default gateway for the second dedicated TCP/IP stack processor that is different from the first default gateway for the dedicated TCP/IP stack processor and the second default gateway for the generic TCP/IP stack processor;
implementing the second dedicated TCP/IP stack processor with an IP address of the second third default gateway;
processing data using the second dedicated TCP/IP stack processor to generate a second IP packet with an IP address not in a routing table of the second dedicated TCP/IP stack processor; and
sending the second IP packet to the IP address of the third default gateway.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the generic TCP/IP stack processor provides TCP/IP processing for a plurality of processes not assigned to any dedicated IP stack.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein implementing the dedicated TCP/IP stack processor with the first default gateway comprises configuring, without user input, a default gateway address of the dedicated TCP/IP stack processor as an IP address of the first default gateway.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the default gateway address of the dedicated TCP/IP stack processor is configured dynamically.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the default gateway address of the dedicated TCP/IP stack processor is configured using a dynamic host configuration protocol.

11. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing a program which when executed by at least one processing unit implements a plurality of TCP/IP stack processors outside of any virtual machine, the program comprising sets of instructions for:
retrieving configuration data for a dedicated TCP/IP stack processor, wherein the configuration data comprises a designation of a first default gateway for the dedicated TCP/IP stack processor that is different from a second default gateway for a generic TCP/IP stack processor, wherein the generic and dedicated TCP/IP stack processes are not implemented by virtual machines;
without user input, configuring the dedicated TCP/IP stack processor with an IP address of the first default gateway;
processing data using the dedicated TCP/IP stack processor to generate an IP packet with an IP address not in a routing table of the dedicated TCP/IP stack processor; and
sending the IP packet to the IP address of the first default gateway.

12. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 11 , wherein the dedicated TCP/IP stack processor is a first dedicated TCP/IP stack processor, the program comprises a set of instructions for implementing a second dedicated TCP/IP stack processor with a third default gateway.

13. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 12 wherein the first dedicated TCP/IP stack processor is implemented with a first virtual local area network (VLAN) and the second dedicated TCP/IP stack processor is implemented with a second VLAN.

14. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 13 , wherein the program further comprises a set of instructions for adding a first VLAN tag to IP packets produced by the first dedicated TCP/IP stack processor and a second VLAN tag to IP packets produced by the second dedicated TCP/IP stack processor.

15. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 14 , wherein IP packets with the first VLAN tag and IP packets with the second VLAN tag are sent to a single physical network interface card (pNIC).

16. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 11 , wherein the processing units are processing units of a host device that implements a user space and a kernel space.

17. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 16 , wherein the data is produced by a process operating in the kernel space.

18. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 16 , wherein the data is produced by a process operating in the user space.

19. A method of communicating between a first hypervisor service process on a first subnet and a second hypervisor service process on a second subnet, the method comprising:
retrieving configuration data for a dedicated TCP/IP stack processor on a host of the first subnet, wherein the configuration data comprises a designation of a first default gateway for the dedicated TCP/IP stack processor that is different from a second default gateway for a generic TCP/IP stack processor on the host of the first subnet;
implementing the dedicated TCP/IP stack processor with the first default gateway;
processing data from the first hypervisor service process using the dedicated TCP/IP stack processor to generate an IP packet with an IP address not in a routing table of the dedicated TCP/IP stack processor; and

Assignees

• Nicira Inc

Inventors

• Raju Nithin B
• Chandrashekhar Ganesan
• Pan Frank
• Varbanov Tihomir
• Ganchev Tony

Classifications

• H04L49/65

  Re-configuration of fast packet switches · CPC title

• H04L49/70

  Virtual switches · CPC title

• H04L45/42 Primary

  Centralised routing · CPC title