Method and system for unattended installation of guest operating system

• US 8,307,358 B1
• Filed: 06/20/2008
• Issued: 11/06/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 07/10/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Parallels International GmbH (Corel Holdings LP)
• Original Assignee: Parallels Holdings Limited (HNA Technology Co. Ltd.)
• Inventors: Koryakin, Alexey B., Dobrovolskiy, Nikolay N., Tormasov, Alexander G., Beloussov, Serguei M., Koryakina, Elena A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Dao, Thuy
• Assistant Examiner(s): Nguyen, Mongbao
• Application Number:
  US12/143,570
• Time in Patent Office: 1,600 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 717/174
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45562 Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/61 Installation
• 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 9/45512 Command shells
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4555 Para-virtualisation, i.e. guest operating system has to be modified
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

A method and system for an unattended installation of any type of a guest operating system (GOS) on a Virtual Machine (VM). Proposed method and system allow users to create an executable script, which provides automation of any GOS installation on the VM. User actions, such as mouse clicks and keyboard strokes, performed during GOS installation are recorded. The delays, time periods between clicks and strokes are recorded as well. All of this information is incorporated into an executable script. The script, when executed, simulates/reproduces GOS action sequence. This sequence reflects the behavior of GOS itself executed on a VM. The executable script is OS-independent and runs on top of system OS.

Claims

1. A method for handling a guest operating system (GOS) behavior, the method comprising:

activating a first Virtual Machine (VM) on a computer system having a host OS;

launching a scripting system in the host OS for capturing user actions in the VM as they relate to screen images generated within the Virtual Machine, wherein the scripting system has a highest possible privilege level;

generating, by the scripting system, from VM video frames, an executable script; and

automatically manipulating a GOS in a second VM by executing the executable script in the host OS and outside the VM and providing the user actions and the interaction between the user actions and the screen images to the GOS,

wherein the scripting system records user actions performed during a specified recording period, and generates the executable script based on the recorded user actions, and

wherein the scripting system records guest OS screen image fragments pointed to by the user, and the executable script includes the fragments as arguments, and the recorded user actions as methods.

2. A method for unattended installation of a guest operating system (GOS), the method comprising:

activating a Virtual Machine (VM) on a computer system having a host OS;

installing a GOS in the VM;

recording user actions performed during the GOS installation in the VM as they relate to screen images generated within the VM;

generating an executable script based on recorded user actions and the interaction between the user actions and the screen images,

wherein the user actions are performed during a specified recording period, and

further comprising recording guest OS screen image fragments pointed to by the user, such that the executable script includes the fragments as arguments, and the recorded user actions as methods; and

automatically installing the GOS in a different VM by executing the script with a highest privilege level available on the computer and in the host OS.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the user actions include any of:

mouse moves;

mouse clicks;

mouse positioning;

context menu selection;

window activation;

windows toggling;

keyboard strokes; and

delays between the clicks and the strokes.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the mouse clicks invoke events, the keystrokes enter data, and the mouse moves control cursor positioning.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the delays are caused by the user waiting for a graphical entity to appear.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein generating of the executable script includes verification of a window image.

7. The method of claim 2, further comprising testing the GOS by executing the script.

8. The method of claim 2, further comprising installing the GOS applications by executing the script.

9. A system for handling a guest operating system (GOS) behavior, the system comprising:

a hardware computer system having a host OS;

an executable script that automatically manipulates a GOS in a Virtual Machine and provides user actions to the GOS, wherein the script executes in the host and outside the Virtual Machine; and

a scripting system for generating the executable script, wherein the scripting system has a highest privilege level available on the computer and includes a script recording subsystem for capturing the user actions from video frames as they relate to screen images generated within the Virtual Machine,

wherein the executable script is generated based on the user actions and the interaction between the user actions and the screen images,

wherein the script recording subsystem records user actions performed during a specified recording period, and generates the executable script based on the recorded user actions, and

wherein the script recording subsystem records guest OS screen image fragments pointed to by the user, and the executable script includes the fragments as arguments, and the recorded user actions as methods.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the executable script detects screen image fragments in the GOS screen image content.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the executable script is used for unattended installation of the GOS.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the executable script is used for product installation.

13. The system of claim 9, wherein the executable script is generated by a virtualization system.

14. The system of claim 9, wherein the scripting system is external.

16. The system of claim 9, wherein the external scripting system comprises:

a script engine module;

an image verification module; and

a common module.

15. The system of 9, wherein the virtualization system comprises:

a video output virtualization module; and

a keyboard/mouse virtualization module.