Control method of application program and apparatus therefor

• US 20070050781A1
• Filed: 08/28/2006
• Published: 03/01/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 08/30/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Furuichi, Sanehiro, Murase, Masana, Otani, Tasuku
• Granted Patent: US 7,600,231 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/313
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/541 via adapters, e.g. between incompatible applications

Abstract

An information processing apparatus that concurrently executes a plurality of application programs including first and second application programs on an operating system. The information processing apparatus monitors a function call from the first application program to the operating system or a message being sent and received between the first application program and the operating system. Then, based on the monitoring result, the information processing apparatus modifies or inhibits a function call from the second application program to the operating system or a process for sending and receiving a message between the second application program and the operating system. In this way, embodiments of the present invention control operations of the application program without modifying the existing operating system.

Claims

1. An information processing apparatus that concurrently executes a plurality of application programs including first and second application programs on an operating system comprising:

a monitoring component that monitors communications between the first application program and the operating system; and

a control component that manages communications from the second application program to the operating system based on a monitoring result by the monitoring component.

2. The information processing apparatus as claimed in 1, wherein communications between the first application program and the operating system comprises a function call from the first application program to the operating system or a message being sent and received between the first application program and the operating system.

3. The information processing apparatus as claimed in 2, wherein the management comprises modifying or inhibiting a function call from the second application program to the operating system or a process for sending and receiving a message between the second application program and the operating system.

4. The information processing apparatus as claimed in claim 3, wherein

the first application program runs in a first memory space,

the second application program runs in a second memory space different from the first memory space,

the monitoring component is realized by a program operating along with the first application program in the first memory space and records the monitoring result in a control memory space that is capable of being accessed by either of the monitoring component or the control component, and

the control component is realized by a program operating along with the second application program in the second memory space and reads the monitoring result from the control memory space to inhibit or modify a function call or sending and receiving of message based on the read monitoring result.

5. The information processing apparatus as claimed in claim 4, wherein

the information processing apparatus further comprises:

a first modifying component that modifies an address of the function call from the first application program to the operating system to an address of the program realizing the monitoring component; and

a second modifying component that modifies an address of the function call from the second application program to the operating system to an address of the program realizing the control component, the monitoring component is called from the first application program to start a process, records an argument or a return value of a function call in the control memory space as the monitoring result, and invokes a function call to the operating system with the argument, and

the control component is called from the second application program to start a process, reads the monitoring result from the control memory space, and invokes a function call to the operating system with an argument different from the called argument or returns the process to the second application program without executing the function call based on the read monitoring result.

6. The information processing apparatus as claimed in claim 5, wherein

the first modifying component modifies an address of a particular function provided by the operating system and specified to be monitored to the address of the program realizing the monitoring component;

and

the second modifying component modifies an address of a particular function provided by the operating system and specified to be controlled to the address of the program realizing the control component.

7. The information processing apparatus as claimed in claim 4, further comprising:

a first recording section that has a table of an address of each function, which is referred to from each application program every function call, in association with identification information of each function;

a first modifying component that converts an address of a particular function to be monitored to an address of the program realizing the monitoring component; and

a second modifying component that modifies an address of a particular function to be controled to an address of the program realizing the control component.

8. The information processing apparatus as claimed in claim 7, wherein

the first modifying component is realized as a thread running in the first memory space,

the second modifying component is realized as a thread running in the second memory space, and

the control component is further provided in association with an application program controlling the thread and inhibits calling a function on the operating system in order to terminate either of the above threads from the application program.

9. The information processing apparatus as claimed in claim 4, wherein

the information processing apparatus further comprises a second recording section that records a set of copy source and copy destination application programs for which copying data is inhibited,

the monitoring component records, in response to detecting a function call through which the first application program records data in a shared memory space capable of being accessed by either of the first and second application programs, identification information as the monitoring result identifying the first application program in the control memory space in association with the data,

the information processing apparatus further comprises a judging component that judges copying data is inhibited on condition that a set of an application program being identified by the identification information acquired from the control memory space and the second application program is identical with the set of application programs recorded on the second recording component, and

the control component modifies or inhibits, in response to detecting a function call through which the second application program reads data from the shared memory space, a process of that function call based on the judgment by the judging component.

10. The information processing apparatus as claimed in claim 9, wherein

the judging section further judges that copying data is inhibited on condition that data recorded in the shared memory space includes a character string for which copying is inhibited, and

the control section modifies or inhibits a process of the function call through which the second application program reads data from the shared memory space further based on the judgment by the judging component.

11. The information processing apparatus as claimed in claim 9, wherein

the judging component judges that copying data is inhibited on condition that type of data recorded in the shared memory space is inhibited from copying the data, and

the control component modifies or inhibits a process of the function call through which the second application program reads data from the shared memory space further based on the judgment by the judging component.

12. The information processing apparatus as claimed in claim 9, wherein

the monitoring component adds an electronic signature authenticating that the data has recorded by the first application program to the data and records the added data in the shared memory space,

the judging component authenticates the electronic signature recorded in the shared memory space, and

the control component permits the function call through which the second application program reads data from the shared memory space on condition that the authentication by the judging component has succeeded.

13. The information processing apparatus as claimed in claim 9, wherein

the monitoring component encodes the data and records the encoded data in the shared memory space in response to detecting the function call through which the first application program records data in the shared memory space,

the judging component decodes the encoded data recorded in the shared memory space, and

the control component permits the function call through which the second application program reads the decoded data from the shared memory space on condition that the decode by the judging component has succeeded.

14. The information processing apparatus as claimed in claim 9, wherein the monitoring component adds, in response to detecting the function call through which the first application program records data in the shared memory space, a digital watermark showing that the data has been copied from the first application program to the data.

15. The information processing apparatus as claimed in claim 9, wherein

the monitoring component records, in response to detecting the function call through which the first application program records data in the shared memory space, the number of times of the function call in the control memory space in association with that data, and

the judging component judges that the copy of that data is inhibited on condition that the number of times of the function call has exceeded a predetermined reference.

16. The information processing apparatus as claimed in claim 9, wherein

the monitoring component records, in response to detecting the function call through which the first application program records data in the shared memory space, the size of that data in the control memory space in association with that data, and

the judging component judges that the copy of that data is inhibited on condition that the size of the data has exceeded a predetermined reference.

17. The information processing apparatus as claimed in claim 4, wherein

the monitoring component detects a call of a function starting an application program to record identification information of an application program started by the function in the control memory space as the monitoring result,

the information processing apparatus further comprises a judging component that judges that copying the data recorded in the shared memory space into the second application program is inhibited, on condition that the application program identified by the identification information acquired from the control memory space is a predetermined application program, and

the control component modifies or inhibits a function call through which the second application program reads data from the shared memory space based on the judgment by the judging component.

18. A method to be applied to an information processing apparatus for executing a higher-level program providing a higher-level function and first and second lower-level programs each providing first and second lower-level functions, the method comprising the step of:

calling the higher-level function to realize the first lower-level function;

calling the higher-level function to realize the second lower-level function;

judging a combination of the first and second lower-level functions; and

inhibiting the call for the higher-level function on condition that the combination of the first and second lower-level functions is a predetermined combination.

19. A control method of an application program in an information processing apparatus that operates a plurality of application programs including first and second application programs on an operating system in parallel, the control method comprising the steps of:

monitoring communications between the first application program and the operating system; and

communications from the second application program to the operating system based on a monitoring result by the monitoring component.

20. The control method as claimed in 19, wherein communications between the first application program and the operating system comprises a function call from the first application program to the operating system or a message being sent and received between the first application program and the operating system.

21. The control method as claimed in 20, wherein the management comprises modifying or inhibiting a function call from the second application program to the operating system or a process for sending and receiving a message between the second application program and the operating system.

22. A program for controlling an application program in an information processing apparatus that operates a plurality of application programs including first and second application programs on an operating system in parallel, the program making the information processing apparatus function as:

a monitoring component that monitors communications between the first application program and the operating system; and

a control component that manages communications from the second application program to the operating system based on a monitoring result by the monitoring component.

23. The program as claimed in 22, wherein communications between the first application program and the operating system comprises a function call from the first application program to the operating system or a message being sent and received between the first application program and the operating system.

24. The program as claimed in 23, wherein the management comprises modifying or inhibiting a function call from the second application program to the operating system or a process for sending and receiving a message between the second application program and the operating system.

25. A setting method for setting an information processing apparatus so as to control a process for a second application program based on a process for a first application program, the setting method comprising the steps of:

operating a monitoring program, which monitors a function call from the first application program to an operating system, on a first memory space along with the first application program;

operating a control program, which manages communications from the second application program to the operating system based on a monitoring result by the monitoring component, on a second memory space along with the second application program; and

modifying a call destination address of the function call from the first application program to the operating system to an address of the monitoring program and modifying a call destination address of the function call from the second application program to the operating system to an address of the control program.

26. The information processing apparatus as claimed in 25, wherein the management comprises modifying or inhibiting a function call from the second application program to the operating system.