LAUNCHING HYPERVISOR UNDER RUNNING OPERATING SYSTEM

• US 20070266389A1
• Filed: 05/15/2006
• Published: 11/15/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 05/15/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Thornton, Andrew, Ganguly, Shuvabrata, Wiederhirn, John, Ray, Kenneth
• Granted Patent: US 8,176,485 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/104
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45575 Starting, stopping, suspending or resuming virtual machine instances
• 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

The launching of a hypervisor after there is already a running operating system. The operating system itself may launch the hypervisor. The running operating system may be used instead of the hypervisor to discover the physical resources running on the computing system. Other operating systems or operating system instances may be launched after the hypervisor is operational.

Claims

1. A computer program product comprising one or more computer-readable media having one or more computer-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a computing system, the one or more computer-executable instructions cause the computing system to perform a method for using a running operating system to launch a hypervisor, the method comprising:

an act of an operating system launching a hypervisor; and

an act of the launched hypervisor virtualizing at least one physical resource of the computing system to the operating system that launched the hypervisor.

2. A computer program product in accordance with claim 1, wherein the one or more computer-readable media is physical memory and storage media.

3. A computer program product in accordance with claim 1, wherein the one or more computer-readable media is physical memory media.

4. A computer program product in accordance with claim 1, wherein the one or more computer-readable media is physical storage media.

5. A computer program product in accordance with claim 1, wherein the computer-executable instructions are further structured such that, when executed by one or more processors of the computing system, the computing system is caused to further perform the following:

an act of the operating system discovering the at least one physical resource; and

an act of the operating system providing state information for the at least one physical resource to the hypervisor, the state information including at least an identification of the corresponding physical resource.

6. A computer program product in accordance with claim 5, wherein the computer-executable instructions are further structured such that, when executed by one or more processors of the computing system, the computing system is caused to further perform the following:

an act of the hypervisor launching a virtual machine instance for the operating system;

an act of initializing the virtual machine instance with state information provided by the operating system;

an act of the hypervisor resuming the operating system after initializing the virtual machine instance; and

after the operating system is resumed, an act of the hypervisor using the virtual machine instance to virtualize the at least one physical resource.

7. A computer program product in accordance with claim 6, wherein the computer-executable instructions are further structured such that, when executed by one or more processors of the computing system, the computing system is caused to further perform the following for each additional operating system launched on the computing system:

an act of the hypervisor launching a corresponding virtual machine instance for each additional operating system;

an act of launching the corresponding additional operating system after the corresponding virtual machine instance is launched; and

an act of the hypervisor using the corresponding virtual machine instance to virtualize the at least one physical resource to the corresponding additional operating system.

8. A computer program product in accordance with claim 1, wherein the computer-executable instructions are further structured such that, when executed by the one or more processors of the computing system, the computing system is caused to further perform the following:

an act of the launched hypervisor virtualizing at least one physical resource of the computing system to the operating system that launched the hypervisor.

9. A computer program product in accordance with claim 1, wherein the computer-executable instructions further comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors of the computing system, the computing system is caused to perform the following:

an act of the operating system creating a temporary virtual machine instance;

an act of initializing the temporary virtual machine instance with an instruction that generates an intercept;

an act of resuming the temporary virtual machine instance after the act of initializing;

upon detecting the intercept resulting from the act of resuming the temporary virtual machine instance, an act of starting the temporary virtual machine instance to operate using hypervisor state.

10. A computer program product in accordance with claim 9, wherein the computer-executable instructions further comprise computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors of the computing system, the computing system is caused to perform the following prior to the creation of the temporary virtual machine instance:

an act of rendering inactionable any non-maskable interrupts.

11. A computer program product in accordance with claim 9, wherein the computer-executable instructions further comprise computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors of the computing system, the computing system is caused to perform the following after the temporary virtual machine instance is started using the hypervisor state:

an act of launching the hypervisor; and

an act of destroying the temporary virtual machine instance.

12. A computer program product in accordance with claim 11, wherein one of the operating system and the hypervisor operates in 32 bit mode, while the other of the operating system and the hypervisor operators in 64 bit made.

13. A computer program product in accordance with claim 11, wherein the operating system and the hypervisor operate using a different paging mechanism.

14. A method for launching a hypervisor using a running operating system to launch a hypervisor, the method comprising:

an act of a hypervisor receiving from a root operating system information representing a plurality of physical resources detected by the operating system;

an act of the hypervisor launching a virtual machine instance for the root operating system;

an act of initializing the virtual machine with state consistent with the information representing the plurality of physical resources detected by the operating system;

an act of resuming the root operating system such that the root operating system interfaces indirectly with the plurality of physical resources via the virtual machine instance that was initialized using the state.

15. A method in accordance with claim 14, further comprising the following after the hypervisor is running:

an act of launching one or more additional operating systems.

16. A method in accordance with claim 15, further comprising the following for each of the one or more additional operating systems:

an act of initiating a corresponding virtual machine instance to interface with the corresponding additional operating system.

17. A computer program product comprising one or more computer-readable media having thereon the following:

an operating system; and

a hypervisor launched by the operating system and configured to virtualize at least one physical resource of the computing system to the operating system.

18. A computer program product in accordance with claim 17, wherein the one or more computer-readable media is physical memory and storage media.

19. A computer program product in accordance with claim 17, wherein the one or more computer-readable media is physical memory media.

20. A computer program product in accordance with claim 17, wherein the one or more computer-readable media is physical storage media.