Sharing Live Appliances

• US 20080034364A1
• Filed: 08/02/2007
• Published: 02/07/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/02/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: MOKA5, INC.
• Inventors: Chen, Michael, Chandra, Ramesh, Berkheimer, Andrew, Whaley, John, Lam, Monica, Chun, Won-Suk, Sapuntzakis, Constantine, Yue, Kelvin
• Granted Patent: US 8,266,576 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/188 Virtual file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/63 Image based installation; Cloning; Build to order
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/658 Incremental updates; Differential updates
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44505 Configuring for program initiating, e.g. using registry, configuration files
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors

Abstract

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer program apparatus, implementing techniques for publishing, subscribing to, or playing live appliances. A live appliance includes a current virtual machine image. In publishing, a proxy file of a live appliance file type is provided to the publisher. The type is mapped to a live appliance player; so that when a proxy file is opened, the current virtual machine image is run. The player automatically binds a writeable file system external to the virtual machine image to the image to provide file storage that is accessible from within the virtual machine image and from a host operating system. The player also creates a subscription to the live appliance on the host computer if one does not exist when the proxy file is run. With the subscription, the player runs the then-current virtual machine image whenever the live appliance is run.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving in a computer a request to run a live appliance, the live appliance providing a computing environment that a user can run on the computer, the live appliance being defined by a data source that includes a version description for a current version of a virtual machine image;

determining whether the computer has subscribed to the live appliance, and if not, subscribing to the live appliance on the computer, reading the data source for the live appliance, and using the current version description to initiate downloading of the current version of the virtual machine image to the computer;

when the computer has subscribed to the live appliance, detecting whether a change has occurred in the data source that changes the version description designated as the current version description, and if a change has occurred, reading updated data from the data source, the updated data designating a second version description as the current version description, the second version description describing a different second version of the virtual machine image as the current version of the virtual machine image;

obtaining the current version of the virtual machine image as described by the second version description; and

running the current version of the virtual machine image.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the data source includes a respective version description for each of multiple versions of the virtual machine image, the data source further including data designating one of the versions of the virtual machine image as the current version.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein:

receiving the request to run the live appliance comprises receiving in the computer a request to open a proxy for the live appliance, the proxy including a source identifier that can be resolved to a location of the data source.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein:

the request to open the proxy is a user input received through a graphical user interface.

5. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

running a helper program in response to receiving in the computer the request to run the live appliance, the helper program either starting a player to open the proxy or notifying a running player of the request to open the proxy.

6. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

running a player to open the proxy, the player being an application program on the computer, the player performing the actions of creating the subscription and obtaining the current version of the virtual machine image as described by the second version description.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the player further performs the actions of detecting whether a change has occurred in the data source.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein a background process performs the actions of detecting whether a change has occurred in the data source.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein:

the player performs polling of the data source to detect whether a change has occurred in the data source.

10. The method of claim 6, wherein:

the player receives an indication pushed over the Internet that a change has occurred in the data source.

11. The method of claim 6, wherein:

the player includes a virtual machine monitor to run the current version of the virtual machine image.

12. The method of claim 6, wherein:

the player invokes a virtual machine monitor to run the current version of the virtual machine image.

13. The method of claim 6, wherein:

the player comprises a virtual appliance transceiver.

14. The method of claim 6, wherein:

the player provides a user file system to provide writeable data storage for the running virtual machine image, the user file system storing file data and metadata on a local data store coupled to the computer.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein:

the user file system is a networked file system protocol implemented in the player that maps file system operations to the local data store.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein:

data files stored on the local data store are stored in a FAT (File Allocation Table) or an NTFS (New Technology File System) file system.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the networked file system protocol is an NFS (Network File System), SMB (Server Message Block), CIFS (Common Internet File System) or AFS (Andrew File System) protocol.

18. The method of claim 14, wherein:

the local data store is an internal disk drive in the computer, an external disk drive, an attachable disk drive, or an attachable solid state memory device, or an audio or video media player device.

19. The method of claim 14, wherein the file data and metadata in local store is visible to programs running under a host operating system of the computer.

20. The method of claim 6, wherein:

the player uses persistent storage on the computer for user profile and registry information to allow user configuration of the current virtual machine image to be persistent across updates to the current virtual machine image and across rebooting of the computer.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein:

the persistent storage is provided by an attachable personal storage device.

22. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

obtaining the proxy as an attachment to an e-mail message, as an attachment to an instant message, through a link on a web page, or as a pre-installed file on a read-only or a writable memory device.

23. The method of claim 3, wherein:

the data source is an XML (Extensible Markup Language) file;

the proxy is an XML file that includes a unique identifier identifying the live appliance and a source identifier URL (Uniform Resource Locator) for the data source;

each version description is an XML file that identifies a respective virtual machine configuration by a link to the virtual machine configuration; and

each virtual machine configuration is an XML file that includes respective virtual machine configuration data, disk configuration and location information for one or more virtual disks, the one or more virtual disks including a respective virtual machine image.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein:

the virtual machine configuration data for a version includes a title for the version, a description of the version, and a change history for the version.

25. The method of claim 1, wherein:

obtaining the current version of the virtual machine image includes reading parts of the virtual machine image on demand.

26. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the first version of the virtual machine image is in a first format and the second version of the virtual machine image is in a different second format.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein:

the first format is a VMware format and the second format is a Virtual PC format.

28. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

obtaining the proxy from a subscription service;

obtaining the data source from the subscription service; and

obtaining the virtual machine configuration for the current version and the one or more virtual disks from a distribution service.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein:

each virtual disk is organized as a series of one or more copy on write data storage resources.

30. A method comprising:

uploading a virtual machine image to a distribution service; and

posting a live appliance to a subscription service by providing data source information to the subscription service, the data source information including version information describing a version of a virtual machine image, the version having a virtual machine version configuration.

31. The method of claim 30, further comprising:

receiving from the subscription service a proxy file generated by the subscription service, the proxy file including a source identifier that can be resolved to a location of the data source, the proxy file having a distinguished file type identifying the proxy file as a live appliance proxy.

32. The method of claim 30, further comprising:

receiving from the subscription service a proxy file that includes a source identifier that can be resolved to a location of the data source, the proxy file having a distinguished file type identifying the proxy file as a live appliance proxy.

33. The method of claim 30, wherein:

the data source including multiple versions of the virtual machine image, each version having a virtual machine version configuration, the data source identifying a current version, the current version being one of the one or more versions of the virtual machine image.

34. The method of claim 30, further comprising:

creating the virtual machine image from a previously-existing virtual machine image in a previously-existing live appliance.

35. The method of claim 30, further comprising:

creating the virtual machine image as a new virtual machine image, including installing on the virtual machine image an operating system and software to run on the operating system.

36. The method of claim 30, wherein:

providing data source information comprises posting a data source to the subscription service.

37. The method of claim 30, wherein:

providing data source information comprises filling in a form provided by the subscription service.

38. The method of claim 30, further comprising:

uploading a new virtual machine image to extend the live appliance.

39. The method of claim 30, wherein:

the distribution service is a peer-to-peer service on the Internet through which subscribers can provide virtual machine images to other subscribers.

40. The method of claim 30, wherein:

the distribution service is implemented on one or more distribution servers serving virtual machine images to remote clients over the Internet.

41. The method of claim 30, wherein:

the subscription service is implemented on a subscription server.

42. A system comprising:

one or more computers coupled in data communication with each other and to a data communication network to interact with users; and

a post interface, an upload interface, and a system database implemented on the one or more computers;

the post interface being operable to receive post input over the network from a publisher user posting a live appliance to the system, the post input including data source information, the data source information including version information describing a version of a virtual machine image, the version having a virtual machine version configuration, in response to which the system registers the live appliance, creates a corresponding data source including the data source information, and stores the corresponding data source in the system database;

the upload interface being operable to receive upload input over the network from the publisher user, the upload input comprising the version of the virtual machine image, and to store the virtual machine image in the system database;

the system being operable to provide a proxy for the live appliance to the publisher user in response to the publisher posting the live appliance.

43. The system of claim 42, further comprising:

an update interface implemented on the one or more computers, the update interface being operable to receive update input over the network from the publisher user updating the corresponding data sources for the live appliance.

44. The system of claim 42, wherein:

the system implements a subscription service and a distribution service, the subscription service being implemented on one or more subscription subsystem and the distribution service being implemented on one or more distribution computers;

the post interface and a subscription database being implemented on the one or more subscription computers, the subscription database being a part of the system database storing the data source; and

the upload interface and an upload database being implemented on the one or more distribution computers, the upload database being a part of the system database storing the virtual machine image.

45. The system of claim 44, further comprising:

an update interface implemented on the one or more subscription computers, the update interface being operable to receive update input over the network from the publisher user updating the corresponding data sources for the live appliance.

46. The system of claim 45, further comprising:

distribution software operable to distribute virtual machine image to a requesting user.

47. The system of claim 46, wherein the distribution software comprises a centralized web server.

48. The system of claim 46, wherein the distribution software comprises distributed peer-to-peer file sharing software.

49. The system of claim 42, further comprising:

distribution software operable to distribute virtual machine image to a requesting user.

50. The system of claim 49, wherein the distribution software comprises a centralized web server.

51. The system of claim 49, wherein the distribution software comprises distributed peer-to-peer file sharing software.

52. A computer-implemented method comprising:

in response to a user action opening a proxy file on a computer, automatically invoking a player application on the computer, the player application performing player actions comprising;

using the proxy file to locate the current version of the virtual machine image; and

causing the current version of the virtual machine image to be run by a virtual machine monitor.

53. The method of claim 52, wherein using the proxy file to locate the current version of the virtual machine image comprises:

obtaining feed data from a data source identified in the proxy file;

using the feed data to identify a current version of a virtual machine image; and

using the feed data to locate the current version of the virtual machine image.

54. The method of claim 52, wherein the proxy file comprises a hyperlink to a virtual machine and using the proxy file to locate the current version of the virtual machine image comprises using the hyperlink to obtain the virtual machine image.

55. The method of claim 52, further comprising:

binding data files for the virtual machine image to the virtual machine image automatically from outside the virtual machine image, the data files being also visible as local files on the computer.

56. The method of claim 52, further comprising:

installing a guest operating system dependent helper in the virtual machine image to implement a user file system protocol to read and write the data files on a local data store; and

the player performs player actions further comprising;

configuring a network file system server on the computer to provide the guest operating system with the user file system for reading and writing the data files.

57. The method of claim 52, wherein the data source includes an RSS (Rich Site Summary) feed and the feed data includes data obtained from the RSS feed.

58. The method of claim 52, wherein:

the data source is identified in the proxy by a link to the data source; and

the player uses the link to access the data source.

59. The method of claim 58, wherein the link is a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI)

60. The method of claim 58, wherein the virtual machine image includes an operating system and application software installed on the virtual machine.

61. The method of claim 58, wherein the virtual machine monitor is a VMWare Player, a Microsoft Virtual Server, a Xen virtual machine monitor, a Parallels virtual machine monitor, or a Virtuozzo virtual machine monitor.

62. The method of claim 58, wherein the virtual machine monitor provides machine-level virtualization or operating system level virtualization.

63. A memory for storing data for access by an application program being executed on a data processing system, comprising:

a data structure stored in the memory, the data structure comprising;

a proxy for a live appliance;

a data source; and

one or more virtual machine version configurations, each version configuration including one or more links to a corresponding virtual machine image;

wherein;

the proxy includes a source identifier that can be resolved to a location of the data source;

the data source includes data designating one of the versions of the virtual machine image as the current version, the current version being described by a current version description; and

each version configuration contains configuration data describing the corresponding virtual machine image.

64. The memory of claim 63, wherein:

the proxy further includes a live appliance identifier.

65. The memory of claim 63, wherein:

the data source includes an identifier unique to the data source.

66. The memory of claim 63, wherein:

each version description includes a link to a respective version configuration.

67. The memory of claim 63, wherein:

each version description is included as part of the data source.

68. The memory of claim 63, wherein:

the proxy is a file;

the data source is an XML file; and

each version configuration is an XML file.

69. The memory of claim 63, wherein:

the memory is distributed across multiple servers, the data source being stored on a subscription server, each virtual machine image being stored on one of one or more distribution servers.

70. The memory of claim 69, wherein:

each version configuration is stored on one of one or more distribution servers.

71. The memory of claim 63, wherein:

the memory is all within a single server.

72. The memory of claim 63, wherein:

the source identifier is a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI); and

the data source includes a maintainer name and e-mail address.

73. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving in a user interface of a computer an uninterrupted user action opening a proxy document and, in response to the user action and without further user intervention, performing actions comprising;

identifying, based on information in the proxy document, a live appliance;

determining whether the computer has subscribed to the live appliance and, if not, subscribing to the live appliance; and

running a current version of a virtual machine image from the live appliance, the live appliance including one or more versions of the virtual machine image.

74. The method of claim 73, wherein subscribing to the live appliance comprises:

registration of a live appliance download process on the computer, the process being operable to download virtual machine images from the live appliance, the live appliance download process being installed to persist across, and to be run after, a reboot of the computer.

75. The method of claim 73, wherein:

the live appliance includes a temporal sequence of virtual machine images that are updated over time

76. The method of claim 73, wherein:

the user action opening the proxy document is a single-click action on an icon representing the proxy document.

77. The method of claim 73, wherein:

the user action opening the proxy document is a single-click action on a hyperlink that is linked to the proxy document.

78. The method of claim 73, wherein:

the user action opening the proxy document is a double-click action on an icon representing the proxy document.

79. The method of claim 73, wherein:

the user interface is a user interface of an e-mail client or an instant messaging client.

80. A computer program product, tangibly stored on a machine-readable medium, the product comprising instructions operable when executed by a computer to perform operations comprising:

receiving in a user interface of the computer an uninterrupted user action opening a proxy document and, in response to the user action and without further user intervention, performing actions comprising;

identifying, based on information in the proxy document, a live appliance;

determining whether the computer has subscribed to the live appliance and, if not, subscribing to the live appliance; and

running a current version of a virtual machine image from the live appliance, the live appliance including one or more versions of the virtual machine image.

81. The method of claim 80, wherein subscribing to the live appliance comprises:

registration of a live appliance download process on the computer, the process being operable to download virtual machine images from the live appliance, the live appliance download process being installed to persist across, and to be run after, a reboot of the computer.

82. The method of claim 80, wherein:

the live appliance includes a temporal sequence of virtual machine images that are updated over time

83. The method of claim 80, wherein:

the user action opening the proxy document is a single-click action or a double-click action on an icon representing the proxy document.

84. The method of claim 80, wherein:

the user action opening the proxy document is a single-click action on a hyperlink that is linked to the proxy document.

85. The method of claim 80, wherein:

the user interface is a user interface of an e-mail client or an instant messaging client.

86. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

registering a live appliance file type on a computer to associate the file type with a player application on the computer, wherein;

running the player application in response to a user action or a programmatic action opening a first document of the file type on the computer, the player application performing actions comprising;

acting on the first document by reading feed data from a first live appliance data feed source, the data feed source being the first document or being identified by a source locator in the first document;

reading a first virtual machine image, the virtual machine image being in the feed source or being identified by an image locator in the feed source; and

causing the first virtual machine to be run by a virtual machine monitor.

87. The method of claim 86, wherein the player application further performs actions comprising:

selecting the first virtual machine image from among multiple virtual machine images found in or identified by the feed source.

88. The method of claim 86, wherein:

the player includes the virtual machine monitor.

89. A computer program product, tangibly stored on a machine-readable medium, the product comprising instructions operable when executed by a computer to perform operations comprising:

registering a live appliance file type on the computer to associate the file type with a player application on the computer, wherein;

running the player application in response to a user action or a programmatic action opening a first document of the file type on the computer, the player application performing actions comprising;

acting on the first document by reading feed data from a first live appliance data feed source, the data feed source being the first document or being identified by a source locator in the first document;

reading a first virtual machine image, the virtual machine image being in the feed source or being identified by an image locator in the feed source; and

causing the first virtual machine to be run by a virtual machine monitor.

90. The method of claim 89, wherein the player application further performs actions comprising:

selecting the first virtual machine image from among multiple virtual machine images found in or identified by the feed source.

91. The method of claim 89, wherein:

the player includes the virtual machine monitor.

92. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving in a user interface of a computer an uninterrupted user action opening a proxy document having a live appliance file type and, in response to the user action and without further user intervention, automatically invoking a player application on the computer, the player application performing actions comprising;

identifying a remote source identifying a current version of a virtual machine image based on information in the proxy document;

determining whether a copy of the current version of the virtual machine image has been downloaded to the computer and if not, beginning to download the virtual machine image to the computer; and

running the virtual machine image on a virtual machine monitor on the computer.

93. The method of claim 92, wherein the proxy document identifies a live appliance and the actions further comprise:

determining whether a subscription to the live appliance exists on the computer and if not, initiating a persistent process on the computer to maintain a subscription to the live appliance on the computer.

94. The method of claim 92, wherein the uninterrupted user action is a single-click action or a double-click action.

95. A computer program product, tangibly stored on a machine-readable medium, the product comprising instructions operable when executed by a computer to perform operations comprising:

receiving in a user interface of the computer an uninterrupted user action opening a proxy document having a live appliance file type and, in response to the user action and without further user intervention, automatically invoking a player application on the computer, the player application performing actions comprising;

identifying a remote source identifying a current version of a virtual machine image based on information in the proxy document;

determining whether a copy of the current version of the virtual machine image has been downloaded to the computer and if not, beginning to download the virtual machine image to the computer; and

running the virtual machine image on a virtual machine monitor on the computer.

96. The method of claim 95, wherein the proxy document identifies a live appliance and the actions further comprise:

determining whether a subscription to the live appliance exists on the computer and if not, initiating a persistent process on the computer to maintain a subscription to the live appliance on the computer.

97. The method of claim 95, wherein the uninterrupted user action is a single-click action or a double-click action.

98. A system comprising:

a computer comprising memory, the memory storing instructions operable when executed by the computer to perform operations comprising;

receiving in a user interface of a computer an uninterrupted user action opening a proxy document and, in response to the user action and without further user intervention, performing actions comprising;

identifying, based on information in the proxy document, a live appliance;

determining whether the computer has subscribed to the live appliance and, if not, subscribing to the live appliance; and

running a current version of a virtual machine image from the live appliance, the live appliance including one or more versions of the virtual machine image.

99. A system comprising:

a computer with a player application installed on the computer, a live appliance file type being registered on the computer to associate the file type with the player application on the computer;

a computer comprising memory, the memory storing instructions operable when executed by the computer to perform operations comprising;

running the player application in response to a user action or a programmatic action opening a first document of the file type on the computer, the player application performing actions comprising;

acting on the first document by reading feed data from a first live appliance data feed source, the data feed source being the first document or being identified by a source locator in the first document;

reading a first virtual machine image, the virtual machine image being in the feed source or being identified by an image locator in the feed source; and

causing the first virtual machine to be run by a virtual machine monitor.

100. A system comprising:

a computer with a player application installed on the computer;

the computer comprising memory, the memory storing instructions operable when executed by the computer to perform operations comprising;

receiving in a user interface of a computer an uninterrupted user action opening a proxy document having a live appliance file type and, in response to the user action and without further user intervention, automatically invoking the player application on the computer, the player application performing actions comprising;

identifying a remote source identifying a current version of a virtual machine image based on information in the proxy document;

determining whether a copy of the current version of the virtual machine image has been downloaded to the computer and if not, beginning to download the virtual machine image to the computer; and

running the virtual machine image on a virtual machine monitor on the computer.

101. A computer program product, tangibly embodied in a computer-readable medium, comprising instructions operable to cause a computer to perform operations comprising:

receiving in a computer a request to run a live appliance, the live appliance providing a computing environment that a user can run on the computer, the live appliance being defined by a data source that includes a version description for a current version of a virtual machine image;

determining whether the computer has subscribed to the live appliance, and if not, subscribing to the live appliance on the computer, reading the data source for the live appliance, and using the current version description to initiate downloading of the current version of the virtual machine image to the computer;

when the computer has subscribed to the live appliance, detecting whether a change has occurred in the data source that changes the version description designated as the current version description, and if a change has occurred, reading updated data from the data source, the updated data designating a second version description as the current version description, the second version description describing a different second version of the virtual machine image as the current version of the virtual machine image;

obtaining the current version of the virtual machine image as described by the second version description; and

running the current version of the virtual machine image.

102. The product of claim 101, wherein:

the data source includes a respective version description for each of multiple versions of the virtual machine image, the data source further including data designating one of the versions of the virtual machine image as the current version.

103. The product of claim 101, wherein:

receiving the request to run the live appliance comprises receiving in the computer a request to open a proxy for the live appliance, the proxy including a source identifier that can be resolved to a location of the data source.

104. The product of claim 103, wherein:

the request to open the proxy is a user input received through a graphical user interface.

105. The product of claim 103, the instructions being operable to cause a computer to perform further operations comprising:

running a helper program in response to receiving in the computer the request to run the live appliance, the helper program either starting a player to open the proxy or notifying a running player of the request to open the proxy.

106. The product of claim 103, the instructions being operable to cause a computer to perform further operations comprising:

running a player to open the proxy, the player being an application program on the computer, the player performing the actions of creating the subscription and obtaining the current version of the virtual machine image as described by the second version description.

107. The product of claim 106, wherein the player further performs the actions of detecting whether a change has occurred in the data source.

108. The product of claim 106, wherein a background process performs the actions of detecting whether a change has occurred in the data source.

109. The product of claim 106, wherein the player performs polling of the data source to detect whether a change has occurred in the data source.

110. The product of claim 106, wherein the player receives an indication pushed over the Internet that a change has occurred in the data source.

111. The product of claim 106, wherein the player includes a virtual machine monitor to run the current version of the virtual machine image.

112. The product of claim 106, wherein the player invokes a virtual machine monitor to run the current version of the virtual machine image.

113. The product of claim 106, wherein the player comprises a virtual appliance transceiver.

114. The product of claim 106, wherein the player provides a user file system to provide writeable data storage for the running virtual machine image, the user file system storing file data and metadata on a local data store coupled to the computer.

115. The product of claim 114, wherein the user file system is a networked file system protocol implemented in the player that maps file system operations to the local data store.

116. The product of claim 115, wherein data files stored on the local data store are stored in a FAT (File Allocation Table) or an NTFS (New Technology File System) file system.

117. The product of claim 115, wherein the networked file system protocol is an NFS (Network File System), SMB (Server Message Block), CIFS (Common Internet File System) or AFS (Andrew File System) protocol.

118. The product of claim 114, wherein the local data store is an internal disk drive in the computer, an external disk drive, an attachable disk drive, or an attachable solid state memory device, or an audio or video media player device.

119. The product of claim 114, wherein the file data and metadata in local store is visible to programs running under a host operating system of the computer.

120. The product of claim 106, wherein the player uses persistent storage on the computer for user profile and registry information to allow user configuration of the current virtual machine image to be persistent across updates to the current virtual machine image and across rebooting of the computer.

121. The product of claim 120, wherein the persistent storage is provided by an attachable personal storage device.

122. The product of claim 103, the instructions being operable to cause a computer to perform further operations comprising:

obtaining the proxy as an attachment to an e-mail message, as an attachment to an instant message, through a link on a web page, or as a pre-installed file on a read-only or a writable memory device.

123. The product of claim 103, wherein:

the data source is an XML (Extensible Markup Language) file;

the proxy is an XML file that includes a unique identifier identifying the live appliance and a source identifier URL (Uniform Resource Locator) for the data source;

each version description is an XML file that identifies a respective virtual machine configuration by a link to the virtual machine configuration; and

each virtual machine configuration is an XML file that includes respective virtual machine configuration data, disk configuration and location information for one or more virtual disks, the one or more virtual disks including a respective virtual machine image.

124. The product of claim 123, wherein the virtual machine configuration data for a version includes a title for the version, a description of the version, and a change history for the version.

125. The product of claim 101, wherein obtaining the current version of the virtual machine image includes reading parts of the virtual machine image on demand.

126. The product of claim 101, wherein the first version of the virtual machine image is in a first format and the second version of the virtual machine image is in a different second format.

127. The product of claim 126, wherein the first format is a VMware format and the second format is a Virtual PC format.

128. The product of claim 101, the instructions being operable to cause a computer to perform further operations comprising:

obtaining the proxy from a subscription service;

obtaining the data source from the subscription service; and

obtaining the virtual machine configuration for the current version and the one or more virtual disks from a distribution service.

129. The product of claim 128, wherein each virtual disk is organized as a series of one or more copy on write data storage resources.

130. A method comprising:

binding data files for a virtual machine image to the virtual machine image automatically from outside the virtual machine image, the data files being also visible as local files on the computer, the data files being bound by being mounted as a directory hierarchy within or as a home directory or a user profile in the virtual machine image.

131. The method of claim 130, further comprising:

installing a guest operating system dependent helper in the virtual machine image to implement a user file system protocol to read and write the data files on a local data store; and

the player performs player actions further comprising;

configuring a network file system server on the computer to provide the guest operating system with the user file system for reading and writing the data files.

132. The method of claim 130, wherein:

the user file system is a networked file system protocol implemented in the player that maps file system operations to the local data store.

133. The method of claim 132, wherein:

the data files stored on the local data store are stored in a FAT (File Allocation Table) or an NTFS (New Technology File System) file system.

134. The method of claim 132, wherein the networked file system protocol is an NFS (Network File System), SMB (Server Message Block), CIFS (Common Internet File System) or AFS (Andrew File System) protocol.

135. The method of claim 130, wherein:

the local data store is an internal disk drive in the computer, an external disk drive, an attachable disk drive, or an attachable solid state memory device, or an audio or video media player device.

136. The method of claim 130, wherein:

the file system comprises an NFS (Network File System) volume.

137. The method of claim 130, wherein the player performs player actions further comprising:

binding an attachable data storage device to the virtual machine image.

138. The method of claim 137, wherein:

when a file system write operation is directed from the virtual machine of the virtual machine image to the attachable data storage device, network extension code is invoked, the network extension code being operable to;

cause data to be written to the attachable data storage device based upon the file system write function call,

generate a transmit determination indicative of whether to transmit the data to a network repository, and

transmit the data to the network repository based upon the transmit determination.

139. The method of claim 130, wherein:

the player runs a first version of the virtual machine image and is operable to discard changes to one or more virtual disks in the virtual machine image and return the one or more virtual disks to an original state found in the first version of the virtual machine image;

the player makes a virtual volume of data storage visible to the running virtual machine image;

the running virtual machine image mounts the virtual volume; and

the running virtual machine uses the virtual volume to store user data files.

140. The method of claim 139, wherein:

the virtual volume is available as a mountable volume on the computer.

141. The method of claim 139, further comprising:

creating a fake user at startup of the computer having no general access rights to file storage on the computer other than storage mounted on the running virtual machine image by the player; and

running the virtual machine monitor as a program run by the fake user to protect file storage on the computer.

142. A computer program product, tangibly embodied in a computer-readable medium, comprising:

a dependent helper in a virtual machine image to implement a user file system protocol to read and write the data files on a local data store, the dependent helper being operable to perform actions comprising;

binding data files for the virtual machine image to the virtual machine image automatically from outside the virtual machine image, the data files being also visible as local files on the computer, the data files being bound by being mounted as a directory hierarchy within or as a home directory or a user profile in the virtual machine image; and

a player operable to perform actions comprising;

configuring a host computer to provide a guest operating system with the user file system for reading and writing the data files.

143. The product of claim 142, wherein configuring the host computer comprising configuring a network file system server on the host computer to provide the guest operating system with the user file system for reading and writing the data files.

144. The product of claim 142, wherein configuring the host computer comprising configuring a virtual machine monitor running the virtual machine image on the host computer to provide the guest operating system with the user file system for reading and writing the data files.