Hypervisor remedial action for a virtual machine in response to an error message from the virtual machine

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9990220-B2
Application number	US-201514961878-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 7, 2015
Priority date	Jun 18, 2013
Publication date	Jun 5, 2018
Grant date	Jun 5, 2018

Abstract

Exemplary methods, apparatuses, and systems include a hypervisor receiving an error message from an agent within a first virtual machine run by the hypervisor. In response to the error message, the hypervisor determines and initiates a corrective action for the hypervisor to take in response to the error message. An exemplary corrective action includes initiating a reset of the first virtual machine or a reset of a second virtual machine.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:
receiving a first error message from an agent within a first virtual machine running on a hypervisor, the first error message indicating a problem with a functionality of the first virtual machine;
receiving a second error message from an agent within a second virtual machine, the second error message indicating a problem with a functionality of the second virtual machine;
determining a dependency between the functionality of the first virtual machine and the functionality of the second virtual machine;
determining a corrective action for the hypervisor to take in response to the determined dependency and the first and second error messages; and
initiating the corrective action with respect to the second virtual machine to address the problem with the functionality of the first virtual machine, wherein the corrective action is initiated in response to the determined dependency and the first and second error messages.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the first error message includes a state of an application running on the first virtual machine or a request to reset the first virtual machine.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the first error message includes a state of a connection between the first virtual machine and an external resource.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the corrective action includes resetting the first or second virtual machine or moving the first or second virtual machine from a first host device running the hypervisor to a second host device.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving a policy from the agent within the first virtual machine, the policy defining an action to take in managing the first virtual machine.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the first error message is received via a trusted communication channel and independently of a networking stack of the first virtual machine.

7. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions, which when executed by a processing device, cause the processing device to perform method comprising:
receiving a first error message from an agent within a first virtual machine running on a hypervisor, the first error message indicating a problem with a functionality of the first virtual machine;
receiving a second error message from an agent within a second virtual machine, the second error message indicating a problem with a functionality of the second virtual machine;
determining a dependency between the functionality of the first virtual machine and the functionality of the second virtual machine;
determining a corrective action for the hypervisor to take in response to the determined dependency and the first and second error message; and
initiating the corrective action with respect to the second virtual machine to address the problem with the functionality of the first virtual machine, wherein the corrective action is initiated in response to the determined dependency and the first and second error messages.

8. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 7 , wherein the first error message includes a state of an application running on the first virtual machine or a request to reset the first virtual machine.

9. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 7 , wherein the first error message includes a state of a connection between the first virtual machine and an external resource.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 7 , wherein the corrective action includes resetting the first or second virtual machine or moving the first or second virtual machine from a first host device running the hypervisor to a second host device.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 7 , the method further comprising:
receiving a policy from the agent within the first virtual machine, the policy defining an action to take in managing the first virtual machine.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 7 , wherein the first error message is received via a trusted communication channel and independently of a networking stack of the first virtual machine.

13. An apparatus comprising a processing device, wherein the processing device executes instructions that cause one or more processors to:
receive a first error message from an agent within a first virtual machine running on a hypervisor, the first error message indicating a problem with a functionality of the first virtual machine;
receive a second error message from an agent within a second virtual machine, the second error message indicating a problem with a functionality of the second virtual machine;
determine a dependency between the functionality of the first virtual machine and the functionality of the second virtual machine;
determine a corrective action to take in response to the determined dependency and the first and second error messages; and
initiate the corrective action with respect to the first virtual machine or the second virtual machine to address the problem with the functionality of the first virtual machine, wherein the corrective action is initiated in response to the determined dependency and the first and second error messages.

14. The apparatus of claim 13 , wherein the first error message is a request to reset the first virtual machine or the first error message includes a state of an application running on the first virtual machine or a state of a connection between the first virtual machine and an external resource.

15. The apparatus of claim 13 , wherein the corrective action includes resetting the first or second virtual machine or moving the first or second virtual machine from a first host device running the hypervisor to a second host device.

16. The apparatus of claim 13 , wherein the instructions further cause the one or more processors to:
receive a policy from the agent within the first virtual machine, the policy defining an action to take in managing the first virtual machine.

17. The apparatus of claim 13 , wherein the first error message is received via a trusted communication channel and independently of a networking stack of the first virtual machine.

Assignees

• Vmware Inc

Inventors

• Vavrick Rostislav
• Farkas Keith
• Desai Smriti
• Oxman Baruch

Classifications

• G06F11/0793

  Remedial or corrective actions (recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40) · CPC title

• G06F9/445

  Program loading or initiating (bootstrapping G06F9/4401; security arrangements for program loading or initiating G06F21/57) · CPC title

• G06F2009/45591

  Monitoring or debugging support · CPC title

• G06F9/45558 Primary

  Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects · CPC title

• G06F11/0712

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