Reconfiguring virtual machines

• US 10,496,424 B2
• Filed: 03/30/2016
• Issued: 12/03/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 05/30/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Shah, Amit
• Primary Examiner(s): Kamran, Mehran
• Application Number:
  US15/085,007
• Publication Number:
  US 20160210168A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,343 Days
• Field of Search: 718 1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45595 Network integration; Enabling network access in virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/61 Installation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/65 Updates security arrangements therefor G06F21/57
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/455 Emulation; Interpretation; Software simulation, e.g. virtualisation or emulation of application or operating system execution engines
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45545 Guest-host, i.e. hypervisor is an application program itself, e.g. VirtualBox
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

Implementations of the disclosure describe reconfiguring virtual machines. In one implementation, a method includes identifying, in view of virtual machine configuration data of a virtual machine, a plurality of virtual hardware components supported by a guest operating system on the virtual machine, identifying, by a processing device executing the virtual machine from the plurality of virtual hardware components, a set of supported virtual hardware components that are not used by the virtual machine, and reconfiguring, by the processing device, the virtual machine to use at least one virtual hardware component from the set of supported virtual hardware components.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

identifying, in view of virtual machine configuration data of a virtual machine, a plurality of virtual hardware components supported by a guest operating system on the virtual machine;

identifying, by a processing device of a virtual machine manager of a host controller, from the plurality of virtual hardware components, a set of supported virtual hardware components that were previously not used by the virtual machine;

generating, by the processing device of the virtual machine manager of the host controller, a user interface comprising the set of supported virtual hardware components that are not used by the virtual machine;

receiving, by the processing device via the user interface, a selection of at least one virtual hardware component from the set of supported virtual hardware components to be initialized on the virtual machine; and

providing, by the virtual machine manager, an instruction to a hypervisor executing the virtual machine to cause the hypervisor to reconfigure the virtual machine by changing a virtual hardware component currently used by the virtual machine to the selected at least one virtual hardware component.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the virtual machine configuration data is obtained by identifying one or more virtual machine components installed on the virtual machine.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the virtual machine configuration data comprises one or more of:

data indicative of an installation of a new guest operating system;

data indicative of an update to the guest operating system;

data indicative of an installation of a new software component on the virtual machine;

data indicative of an upgrade of an existing software component installed on the virtual machine;

or

data indicative of one or more virtual hardware components installed on the virtual machine.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing data indicative of the set of supported virtual hardware components to a user; and

receiving user input indicating the at least one virtual hardware component.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

obtaining additional virtual machine configuration data for the virtual machine;

identifying a second plurality of virtual hardware components supported by the guest operating system on the virtual machine, based on the additional virtual machine configuration data;

identifying, in the second plurality of virtual hardware components, a second set of supported virtual hardware components that are not used by the virtual machine; and

providing, by the virtual machine manager, a second instruction to the hypervisor executing the virtual machine to cause the hypervisor to reconfigure the virtual machine to use a second virtual hardware component from the second set of supported virtual hardware components.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of supported virtual hardware components comprises at least one of virtual hardware components that the virtual machine was previously unable to use or a virtual hardware component that was not supported by the virtual machine prior to an update to the virtual machine configuration data.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising causing the virtual machine to restart after the virtual machine has been reconfigured to use the at least one virtual hardware component from the set of supported virtual hardware components.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of virtual hardware components comprise a sound card.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of virtual hardware components comprise a disk controller.

10. An apparatus comprising:

a memory; and

a processing device communicably coupled to the memory, the processing device to;

identify, in view of virtual machine configuration data of a virtual machine executed by the processing device, a plurality of virtual hardware components supported by a guest operating system on the virtual machine;

identify, by a virtual machine manager of a host controller, from the plurality of supported virtual hardware components, a set of supported virtual hardware components that were previously not used by the virtual machine;

generate a user interface comprising the set of supported virtual hardware components that are not used by the virtual machine;

receive, via the user interface, a selection of at least one virtual hardware component from the set of supported virtual hardware components to be initialized on the virtual machine; and

provide, by the virtual machine manager, an instruction to a hypervisor executing the virtual machine to cause the hypervisor to reconfigure the virtual machine by changing a virtual hardware component currently used by the virtual machine to the selected at least one virtual hardware component.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the plurality of virtual hardware components comprise a sound card.

12. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the plurality of virtual hardware components comprise a disk controller.

13. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the processing device is further to:

provide data indicative of the set of supported virtual hardware components to a user; and

receive user input indicating the at least one virtual hardware component.

14. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the virtual machine configuration data comprises one or more of:

data indicative of an installation of a new guest operating system;

data indicative of an update to the guest operating system;

data indicative of an installation of a new software component on the virtual machine;

data indicative of an upgrade of an existing software component installed on the virtual machine;

or

data indicative of one or more virtual hardware components installed on the virtual machine.

15. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the processing device to determine the at least one virtual hardware component is performed without user intervention.

16. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the set of supported virtual hardware components comprises at least one of virtual hardware components that the virtual machine was previously unable to use or a virtual hardware component that was not supported by the virtual machine prior to an update to the virtual machine configuration data.

17. A non-transitory machine-accessible storage medium comprising instructions that when accessed by a processing device, cause the processing device to:

identify, in view of virtual machine configuration data of a virtual machine executed by the processing device, a plurality of virtual hardware components supported by a guest operating system on the virtual machine;

identify, by the processing device of a virtual machine manager of a host controller, from the plurality of supported virtual hardware components, a set of supported virtual hardware components that were previously not used by the virtual machine;

generate a user interface comprising the set of supported virtual hardware components that are not used by the virtual machine;

receive, by the processing device via the user interface, a selection of at least one virtual hardware component from the set of supported virtual hardware components to be initialized on the virtual machine; and

providing, by the virtual machine manager, an instruction to a hypervisor executing the virtual machine to cause the hypervisor to reconfigure the virtual machine by changing a virtual hardware component currently used by the virtual machine to the selected at least one virtual hardware component.

18. The non-transitory machine-accessible storage medium of claim 17, wherein the plurality of virtual hardware components comprise at least one of a sound card or a disk controller.

19. The non-transitory machine-accessible storage medium of claim 17, wherein the processing device is further to:

provide data indicative of the set of supported virtual hardware components to a user; and

receive user input indicating the at least one virtual hardware component.