ANNOTATING VIRTUAL APPLICATION PROCESSES

• US 20100318997A1
• Filed: 06/15/2009
• Published: 12/16/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/15/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Li, Hui, Sheehan, John M.
• Granted Patent: US 8,826,269 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/104
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45579 I/O management, e.g. providing access to device drivers or storage
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

A virtualization system is described herein that facilitates communication between a virtualized application and a host operating system to allow the application to correctly access resources referenced by the application. When the operating system creates a virtualized application process, the virtualization system annotates a data structure associated with the process with an identifier that identifies the virtualized application environment associated with the process. When operating system components make requests on behalf of the originating virtual process, a virtualization driver checks the data structure associated with the process to determine that the helper process is doing work on behalf of the virtualized application process. Upon discovering that the thread is doing virtual process work, the virtualization driver directs the helper process'"'"'s thread to the virtual application'"'"'s resources, allowing the helper process to accomplish the requested work with the correct data.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for handling a resource request on behalf of a virtualized application process, the method comprising:

receiving a resource access request from an executing process;

extracting process information from the executing process;

determining whether the extracted process information indicates that the executing process is associated with a virtual application process; and

in response to determining that the executing process is associated with a virtual application process,

identifying a virtual application environment in which the virtual application process is operating;

redirecting the received request to the identified virtual application environment; and

responding to the redirected resource request by providing access to the requested resource,

wherein the preceding steps are performed by at least one processor.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the executing process operates on behalf of the virtualized application process.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the executing process impersonates the virtualized application process and copies information from a token associated with the virtualized application process.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the received request specifies a path and redirecting the request comprises modifying the specified path to reference a location where the requested resource associated with the virtualized application process is stored.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein receiving the resource access request comprises invoking a kernel-mode redirection driver configured to determine whether the request originates from a virtual application process and if so, modify paths in requests from virtualized applications to point to a correct resource storage location.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the process information comprises a token that includes security information related to the executing process.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein determining whether the extracted process information indicates a virtual process comprises identifying a form of annotation stored within the process information.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein identifying a virtual application environment associated with the virtual process comprises querying an annotation driver to determine the virtual process associated with the process information extracted from the executing process.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the executing process from which the request was received is a helper process acting on behalf of a separate virtual process.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein redirecting the received request to the identified virtual application environment comprises invoking a redirection driver to modify the received request to point to resources associated with the virtual application.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein responding to the redirected resource request comprises opening an identified file and providing the file data in response to the request.

12. A computer system for executing virtual applications within a host operating system, the computer system comprising:

at least one processor and a memory comprising software instructions stored thereon that when executed by the at least one processor cause the at least one processor to implement components, the components comprising;

an application virtualization environment configured to provide at least some indirection between the virtual application and the host operating system;

a detect process creation component configured to register for and receive notification in response to the host operating system creating a new process;

a token annotation component configured to add one or more fields of data to a token associated with a virtual process that identify the process as a virtual process and associate the process with a particular virtual environment;

a receive resource request component configured to receive requests from one or more applications to access resources managed by the host operating system;

an access annotated token component configured to access the token of an execution context and read the fields added by the token annotation component to identify virtualization information; and

a redirect resource request component configured to receive the virtualization information accessed from the token and redirect resource requests from a specified location to a virtual location.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein the application virtualization environment is further configured to provide the application with an environment for which the application was designed using the available resources of the host operating system, wherein the environment differs from a native environment of the host operating system.

14. The system of claim 12 wherein the detect process creation component is further configured to identify a token associated with the new process, and if the process is associated with a virtual application environment, invoke the token annotation component to add additional information to the virtual process token.

15. The system of claim 12 wherein the token annotation component is further configured to add the one or more fields to a portion of the token that the host operating system automatically replicates to related processes of the virtual process.

16. The system of claim 12 wherein the receive resource request component is further configured to receive requests from one or more helper applications operating on behalf of another application to access resources managed by the host operating system.

17. A computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions for controlling a computer system to associate virtualization information with an application process, wherein the instructions, when executed, cause at least one processor to perform actions comprising:

registering to receive an operating system provided notification that is issued in response to the operating system creating a process;

waiting for the operating system to provide the notification that a process has been created;

receiving the process creation notification that identifies a newly created process;

identifying a virtual application environment of a virtualized application executed within the newly created process;

creating virtualization information that identifies the newly created process as a virtual process and specifies information for locating the identified virtual application environment; and

storing the virtualization information in a process token that provides security information associated with the newly created process.

18. The medium of claim 17 further comprising determining whether the newly created process is associated with the virtualized application process by determining an image location associated with the newly created process.

19. The medium of claim 17 wherein the virtualization information comprises an identifier and storing the virtualization information comprises storing the identifier in the process token.

20. The medium of claim 17 wherein storing the virtualization information comprises storing the information in a portion of the process token that the operating system associates with at least some new threads or processes related to and impersonators of the newly created process.