Virtual machine crash file generation techniques

• US 8,671,405 B2
• Filed: 03/31/2010
• Issued: 03/11/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Nicholas, Andrew, Yampell, Rich, Oshins, Jacob, Vega, Rene Antonio
• Primary Examiner(s): Puente, Emerson
• Assistant Examiner(s): KIM, DONG U
• Application Number:
  US12/751,991
• Publication Number:
  US 20110246986A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,441 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0712 in a virtual computing platform, e.g. logically partitioned systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0778 Dumping, i.e. gathering error/state information after a fault for later diagnosis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0787 Storage of error reports, e.g. persistent data storage, storage using memory protection
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45579 I/O management, e.g. providing access to device drivers or storage
• 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

Techniques for creating crash data in a virtualized environment are disclosed. In an embodiment of the present disclosure the techniques can be used when a guest operating system within a virtual machine may not have a sufficient mechanism for generating crash data.

Claims

1. A computer system, comprising:

circuitry for configuring a communications bus to transmit crash data from a guest operating system, the communications bus not reliant on resources of the guest operating system, the guest operating system configured to execute in a virtual machine, the crash data generated by the action of an IO (Input/Output) controller driver, wherein an IO controller emulator is injected into the virtual machine in response to detecting that the guest operating system has crashed;

circuitry for configuring a hypervisor to obtain crash data for the guest operating system in response to detecting that the guest operating system crashed; and

circuitry for configuring the hypervisor to send the crash data to the virtual machine after the guest operating system is in control of the virtual machine.

2. The computer system of claim 1, further comprising:

circuitry for configuring the virtual machine to send debug metadata associated with the guest operating system to the hypervisor.

3. The computer system of claim 1, further comprising:

circuitry for collocating the crash data with saved state information for the virtual machine.

4. The computer system of claim 1, further comprising:

circuitry for disabling an encryption filter of an input/output driver configured to obtain the crash data.

5. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the communications bus is a monolithic inter-partition communication bus, further comprising:

circuitry for receiving crash data from the IO controller driver via the monolithic inter-partition communication bus, wherein the IO controller driver includes the monolithic inter-partition communication bus.

6. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the circuitry for configuring the hypervisor to obtain the crash data further comprises:

circuitry for accessing, by the hypervisor, guest physical addresses of the virtual machine and generating the crash data.

7. The computer system of claim 1, further comprising:

circuitry for storing information from a page file in the crash data.

8. The computer system 1, further comprising:

circuitry for executing an input/output emulator in the virtual machine, wherein an input/output driver is configured to write the crash data to the input/output emulator.

9. A computer method, comprising:

configuring a communication bus to transmit crash data from a guest operating system, the communications bus not reliant on resources of the guest operating system, the guest operating system configured to execute in a virtual machine, the crash data generated by the action of an IO (Input/Output) controller driver, wherein an IO controller emulator is injected into the virtual machine in response to detecting that the guest operating system has crashed;

configuring a hypervisor to obtain crash data for the guest operating system in response to detecting that the guest operating system crashed; and

configuring the hypervisor to send the crash data to the virtual machine after the guest operating system is in control of the virtual machine.

10. The computer method of claim 9 wherein the injecting comprises adding guest physical addresses to contain memory associated with the input/output controller emulator.

11. The computer method of claim 9, further comprising:

storing a page file for the guest operating system.

12. The computer method of claim 9, further comprising:

configuring boot firmware to load the input/output controller emulator into a guest resources of the virtual machine at boot-time for the guest operating system.

13. The computer method of claim 9, wherein the input/output controller emulator is an IDE controller emulator.

14. The computer method of claim 9, wherein the input/output controller emulator is a backplane based controller emulator.

15. The computer method of claim 9, further comprising:

sending, by a monolithic inter-partition communication bus executing in the virtual machine, the crash data to the hypervisor.

16. The computer method of claim 9, further comprising:

attaching a virtual disk with the crash data to the guest operating system after the guest operating system is in control of the virtual machine.

17. The computer system of claim 9, wherein storing the crash data further comprises:

storing the crash data in a predetermined location on a boot disk for the guest operating system, wherein the boot disk is mounted by the hypervisor.

18. A computer readable physical storage device including executable instructions, the computer readable physical storage device comprising:

instructions for configuring a communication bus to transmit crash data from a guest operating system, the communications bus not reliant on resources of the guest operating system, the guest operating system configured to execute in a virtual machine, the crash data generated by the action of an IO (Input/Output) controller driver, wherein an IO controller emulator is injected into the virtual machine in response to detecting that the guest operating system has crashed;

instructions for configuring a hypervisor to obtain crash data for the guest operating system in response to detecting that the guest operating system crashed; and

instructions for configuring the hypervisor to send the crash data to the virtual machine after the guest operating system is in control of the virtual machine.

19. The computer readable physical storage device of claim 18, further comprising:

instructions for storing debug information associated with the guest operating system at crash in the crash data.

20. The computer readable physical storage device of claim 18, further comprising:

instructions for storing information from a page file in the crash data.