Hypervisor Interrupt Protection for Virtual Machine Functions
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Solution Overview
Problem
Virtualization systems face challenges in protecting virtual machine functions from interrupts, which can lead to system crashes and resource mismanagement, especially when interrupts are injected during the execution of critical virtual machine functions.
Innovation Solution
The system employs a hypervisor that determines specific memory locations within virtual machine functions to insert checking code, which verifies the status of interrupts and either disables or aborts the function if interrupts are enabled, thereby preventing potential crashes and ensuring robust resource management.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Speed
If interrupts are allowed during virtual machine function execution, then system responsiveness is improved, but system stability deteriorates due to potential crashes and resource mismanagement
Solution Approach 1:
The hypervisor performs preliminary actions by determining memory locations of virtual machine functions and inserting checking code before execution occurs. This advance preparation enables the system to detect interrupt attempts during critical function execution and take preventive measures, thus maintaining stability while preserving responsiveness.
Solution Approach 2:
The checking code acts as an intermediary between the interrupt mechanism and the virtual machine function execution. It monitors whether interrupts are attempted during execution of critical functions and either blocks them or triggers appropriate handling, thus mediating between the need for responsiveness and the need for stability.
2Reliability
If checking code is inserted in virtual machine functions, then reliability is improved by preventing interrupt-related crashes, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
Rather than modifying all virtual machine functions uniformly, the hypervisor identifies specific memory locations corresponding to critical virtual machine functions and inserts checking code only at those locations. This localized approach provides necessary protection while minimizing the overall complexity increase.
Solution Approach 2:
The checking code is designed to autonomously determine whether an interrupt is attempted during virtual machine function execution and take appropriate action without requiring complex external intervention. This self-service capability reduces the complexity of the overall protection mechanism.
Data Source
AI summary
A system, methods, and apparatus for protection against interrupts in virtual machine functions are disclosed. A hypervisor determines a first location in the memory, corresponding to a physical address of the virtual machine function. The hypervisor then determines a second location in the memory of the virtual machine function, where the second location is offset from the first location. The hypervisor modifies the virtual machine function at the second location in the memory to include checking code. The virtual machine function is executed and the checking code is executed while the virtual machine function is executing. While executing the checking code, the hypervisor determines whether interrupts are disabled on a virtual machine. Responsive to determining that interrupts are enabled on the virtual machine, disabling the interrupts on the virtual machine and/or aborting the virtual machine function.