Dynamic configurations based on the dynamic host configuration protocol

• US 10,200,342 B2
• Filed: 07/31/2015
• Issued: 02/05/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nicira Incorporated (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Nicira Incorporated (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Zhuo, Zhenjun
• Primary Examiner(s): Vostal, Ondrej C
• Application Number:
  US14/815,862
• Publication Number:
  US 20170033988A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,285 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5014 using dynamic host configuration protocol [DHCP] or bootstrap protocol [BOOTP]

Abstract

Some embodiments provide a method for dynamically configuring multiple instances of applications that operate on clients in a network system. The method of some embodiments uses the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) to configure the multiple instances of each application to share a pool of resources specific to the application that are used for configuring the application on each of the clients. Some embodiments of the invention store an application ID in DHCP-formatted packets to differentiate the packets from DHCP packets and to distribute shared configuration resources between various instances of the application.

Claims

1. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing a program which when executed by a set of processing units of a host computer dynamically re-configures a client machine that (i) is executed by the set of processing units, (ii) is assigned a first Internet Protocol (IP) address, and (iii) runs an application, the program comprising sets of instructions for:

identifying an application identifier (ID) that identifies the application;

transmitting a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) discovery packet comprising the application ID;

receiving a set of response packets from a set of DHCP configuration servers, the response packets comprising IP addresses designated for the application based on the application identifier, said designated IP addresses comprising a second IP address; and

based on a particular response packet of the received set of response packets, dynamically re-configuring the client machine by assigning the second IP address to the client machine in order to replace the first assigned IP address.

2. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the set of response packets are formatted according to the DHCP protocol.

3. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the application ID is stored in a field of the discovery packet that is unused by DHCP.

4. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the set of instructions for receiving the set of response packets comprises sets of instructions for:

determining whether a particular response packet comprises the application ID; and

discarding the particular response packet when the particular response packet does not comprise the application ID.

5. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the program further comprises a set of instructions for configuring the application running on the client machine by (i) identifying a configuration variable in the particular response packet, and (ii) modifying a configuration setting of the application based on the identified configuration variable.

6. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the program further comprises a set of instructions for transmitting a set of request packets comprising the second IP address and the application ID to the set of DHCP configuration servers.

7. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the client machine executed by the set of processing units of the host computer is one of a virtual machine and a container.

8. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the set of DHCP configuration servers select the IP addresses designated for the application from a pool of shared IP addresses for the application.

9. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the set of DHCP configuration servers comprises a first subset of servers that perform standard DHCP services to provide public IP addresses and a second subset of servers that perform application configuration DHCP services to provide application-specific IP addresses.

10. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 9, wherein the application-specific IP addresses are a set of private IP addresses reserved for a plurality of client machines that execute on a plurality of host computers and run the application.

11. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 9, wherein a particular DHCP service and a particular application configuration service operate on a single DHCP configuration server.

12. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 9, wherein the set of instructions for receiving the set of response packets comprises a set of instructions for discarding response packets received from the first subset of servers that perform standard DHCP services.

13. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing a program which when executed by a set of processing units dynamically provides Internet Protocol (IP) addresses for a plurality of client machines that (i) execute on a plurality of host computers and (ii) run a plurality of applications, the program comprising sets of instructions for:

receiving a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) discovery packet from a particular client machine that is assigned a first IP address;

determining whether the discovery packet comprises an application ID for a particular application running on the particular client machine;

when the discovery packet does not include an application ID for the particular application, sending a first offer packet comprising a first IP address from a first pool of IP addresses to the particular client machine for configuring the particular client machine; and

when the discovery packet comprises an application ID for the particular application, sending to the particular client machine a second offer packet comprising a second IP address from a second pool of IP addresses reserved for the particular application based on the application ID, the second offer packet for dynamically re-configuring the particular client machine by assigning the second IP address to replace the first assigned IP address.

14. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 13, wherein the set of instructions for sending the second offer packet comprises a set of instructions for storing the application ID in the second offer packet.

15. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 14, wherein the application ID is stored in a field of the discovery packet and in a field of the second offer packet that are unused by DHCP.

16. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 14, wherein the offer packets are formatted according to the dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP).

17. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 16, wherein at least a portion of a set of configuration data is stored in a field of the offer packet that is unused by DHCP, and the set of configuration data comprises a configuration variable that is used to modify a configuration setting of the particular application running on the particular client machine, based on the configuration variable.

18. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 13, wherein the program further comprises sets of instructions for, when the discovery packet comprises an application ID:

determining whether the second pool of IP addresses reserved for the particular application is available;

when the second pool of IP addresses is not available, discarding the discovery packet; and

when the second pool of IP addresses is available, reserving the second IP address from the second pool of IP addresses.

19. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 18, wherein the program further comprises sets of instructions for:

receiving a request packet from the particular client machine;

determining whether the request packet comprises the second IP address; and

when the request packet does not comprise the second IP address, releasing the second IP address back to the second pool of IP addresses.

20. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 13, wherein the particular client machine executes on a particular host computer in the plurality of host computers and is one of a virtual machine and a container.

21. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 20, wherein the program executes on the set of processing units of the same particular host computer on which the particular client machine executes.

22. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 13, wherein the first pool of addresses is a pool of public IP addresses.