Migration of functionalities across systems

• US 8,813,069 B2
• Filed: 05/29/2009
• Issued: 08/19/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 05/29/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Schneider, James P.
• Primary Examiner(s): Lee, Thomas
• Assistant Examiner(s): Chen, Xuxing
• Application Number:
  US12/475,321
• Publication Number:
  US 20100306769A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,908 Days
• Field of Search: 718/1, 709/213
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45537 Provision of facilities of other operating environments, e.g. WINE I/O emulation G06F13/105
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/547 Remote procedure calls [RPC]; Web services

Abstract

Some embodiments of a method and an apparatus to migrate functionalities across systems have been presented. In one embodiment, a system call from an application running on a first system is detected. The first system has a first version of an operating system, but the system call requires a functionality that is not available in the first version of the operating system. The functionality is available in a second version of the operating system running on a second system. Therefore, the system call is reflected from the first system to the second system.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

detecting, by a processor executing a hypervisor, a system call from an application running on a first virtual machine comprising a first operating system that does not support functionality required by the system call, wherein the first operating system lacks support for the functionality without any commands disabling the functionality;

identifying a second virtual machine comprising a second operating system that supports the functionality required by the system call;

translating the system call by modifying one or more parameters in the system call;

re-directing, by the processor executing the hypervisor, the system call from the first virtual machine to the second virtual machine;

receiving a return in response to the system call from the second virtual machine; and

translating the return.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first operating system is a first version of a particular operating system and the second operating system is a second version of the particular operating system.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the second version of the particular operating system is an upgraded version of the particular operating system.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

recognizing the system call'"'"'s requirement for the functionality.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

sending the translated return from the hypervisor to the first virtual machine.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

executing, by the processor, a kernel module to recognize the system call'"'"'s requirement for the functionality and to re-direct the system call to the second virtual machine,

wherein the second virtual machine runs on a remote computing device, and wherein a second processor of the remote computing device is to create a dummy process associated with the system call.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the system call and the return are translated in view of the dummy process.

8. An apparatus comprising:

a processor to;

receive a system call created by an application running on a remote computing device, the remote computing device comprising a first operating system that does not support functionality required by the system call, wherein the first operating system lacks support for the functionality without any commands disabling the functionality;

create a dummy process, wherein the system call is to be processed as though it was generated by the dummy process;

translate parameters in the system call received from the remote computing device for a second operating system running on the processor, wherein the functionality is available in the second operating system; and

translate a response to the system call; and

a network interface, coupled to the processor, to couple to the remote computing device via a network.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the network interface forwards the translated return to the remote computing device.

10. An apparatus comprising:

a memory to store instructions for a hypervisor; and

a processor, coupled to the memory, to execute;

a first virtual machine comprising a first operating system that does not support functionality required by a system call, wherein the first operating system lacks support for the functionality without any commands disabling the functionality;

a second virtual machine comprising a second operating system that supports the functionality required by the system call; and

the hypervisor, to manage the first and the second virtual machines, the hypervisor comprising a system call handler to determine requirements of the system call and to re-direct the system call to the second virtual machine if the system call requires the functionality not supported by the first operating system, the hypervisor further comprising a call translator to translate one or more parameters of the system call and to translate a response to the system call from the second virtual machine.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the one or more parameters of the system call are translated before the system call is redirected to the second virtual machine.

12. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the response to the system call is translated before the return is forwarded to the first virtual machine.

13. A non-transitory tangible computer-readable storage medium embodying instructions that, when executed by a processor, will cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

detecting, by the processor that executes a hypervisor, a system call from an application running on a first virtual machine comprising a first operating system that does not support functionality required by the system call, wherein the first operating system lacks support for the functionality without any commands disabling the functionality;

translating the system call by modifying one or more parameters in the system call;

re-directing, by the processor executing the hypervisor, the system call from the first virtual machine to the second virtual machine;

receiving a return in response to the system call from the second virtual machine; and

translating the return.

14. The non-transitory tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the first operating system comprises a first version of a particular operating system and the second operating system comprises a second version of the particular operating system.

15. The non-transitory tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein the second version of the particular operating system is an upgraded version of the particular operating system.

16. The non-transitory tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the operations further comprise:

recognizing the system call'"'"'s requirement for the functionality.

17. The non-transitory tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the operations further comprise:

sending the translated return from the hypervisor to the first virtual machine.

18. The non-transitory tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the operations further comprise:

executing, by the processor, a kernel module to recognize the system call'"'"'s requirement for the functionality and to re-direct the system call to the second virtual machine, wherein the second virtual machine runs on a remote computing device, and wherein a second processor of the remote computing device is to create a dummy process associated with the system call.

19. The non-transitory tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the system call and the return are translated in view of the-dummy process.