Hypervisor Crash Dump Extraction to Host File System
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
In virtualization systems, there is no efficient mechanism to automate the provision of crash dump files created by a virtual machine (VM) and stored on its virtual disk, making it difficult to access and diagnose guest OS crashes, as the VM may become non-responsive and the crash dump files are inaccessible outside the VM.
Innovation Solution
A method where the hypervisor receives a notification of a guest OS crash and writes a crash dump file to the host file system, allowing for external access and storage of the crash dump file, even if the VM is non-responsive, thereby enabling diagnosis without reloading the VM.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If crash dump files are stored on the virtual disk of a guest OS, then the crash dump files are generated automatically, but the crash dump files become inaccessible outside the VM when the VM is non-responsive
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a file system interface and hypervisor as intermediaries between the guest OS crash dump generation and external access. When a crash occurs, the hypervisor intercepts the crash dump write operation and redirects it to the host file system, enabling external access without requiring VM responsiveness. This mediator approach resolves the contradiction by decoupling the generation and access paths.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts the crash dump file storage from the virtual disk environment to the host file system. By separating the crash dump storage location from the VM's virtual disk, the system enables direct external access to crash dumps without needing to access the VM internally. This extraction resolves the accessibility issue while maintaining automatic generation.
2Productivity
If manual access to crash dump files is required, then external diagnosis is possible, but the process becomes time-consuming and inefficient
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by pre-configuring the file system interface and hypervisor to automatically intercept and redirect crash dump writes to the host file system before the VM becomes fully non-responsive. This preliminary setup ensures that crash dumps are immediately accessible externally without requiring post-crash manual retrieval operations, thus improving productivity and reducing time loss.
Solution Approach 2:
The system establishes a feedback mechanism where the hypervisor monitors for crash conditions and automatically triggers the redirect of crash dump output to the host file system. This automated feedback loop eliminates manual intervention, improving crash diagnosis efficiency by ensuring crash dumps are always available externally without human action.
3Ease of operation
If the VM must be reloaded to access crash dump files, then the crash dump can be retrieved, but the system downtime increases
Solution Approach 1:
The hypervisor acts as an intermediary that captures crash dump data directly from the guest OS memory and writes it to the host file system, bypassing the need to reload the VM. This mediator approach allows crash dump retrieval without VM restart, reducing system downtime while maintaining ease of operation through simple file access.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a copy of the crash dump data in the host file system from the guest OS memory at the time of crash. This copying mechanism preserves the crash dump information externally without requiring the original VM to be reloaded or restarted, thus reducing downtime while maintaining easy access to crash diagnostics.
Data Source
AI summary
An example method of providing a crash dump file upon a crash of a guest OS includes receiving, by a hypervisor, a notification that a guest OS running on a virtual machine has crashed. The notification is from the guest OS, and the virtual machine and the hypervisor run on a host machine. The method also includes in response to receiving the notification, writing, by the hypervisor, a crash dump file associated with the guest OS crash to a host file system of the host machine.