IP Library Granted Patent US 11,093,629
Granted Patent B2
US 11,093,629 · App. 15/167,949 · Granted Aug 17, 2021

Securing virtual machine data

Inventors: Daniel K. Hiltgen (Los Altos, CA); Rene W. Schmidt (Risskov, DK)
Assignee: VMware, Inc.
G06F21/6218G06F9/45533G06F9/45558G06F9/485G06F9/5088G06F21/53H04L63/10G06F2009/45579G06F2009/45587
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Quick Facts
Patent No.
US 11,093,629
App. No.
15/167,949
Granted
Aug 17, 2021
Kind
B2
Abstract

One embodiment of the present invention is a method including: (a) representing virtual primary disk data and state data of a virtual machine in a unit of storage; (b) exposing the virtual primary disk data of the virtual machine to a guest of the virtual machine to allow the guest to access the virtual primary disk data; and (c) preventing the guest from accessing the state data for the virtual machine.

Claims (41)

1. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a computer program product for securing non-disk data of a virtual machine, the computer program product comprising:

virtualization code executable to:

run a virtual machine having a guest operating system running therein, the virtual machine having virtual machine components residing in one or more partitions of a storage unit of a storage system;

receive a request for a virtual disk from the guest operating system;

modify the request and send the modified request to the storage system to conceal the non-disk data;

receive a response to the modified request from the storage system and modify the response to conceal the modified request; and

send the modified response to the guest operating system.

2. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the virtualization code is executable to verify that the request from the guest operating system indicates a location that falls within request location boundaries for the guest operating system.

3. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the virtualization code being executable to modify the request includes being executable to modify a location indication of the request according to an offset that corresponds to an exposed partition table for the virtual disk.

4. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 3 , wherein the virtualization code is executable to verify that a modified location indication falls within request location boundaries.

5. An apparatus comprising:

a communication interface; and

a storage system coupled to the communication interface and including one or more storage units, wherein at least one storage unit of the one or more storage units is formatted to provide one or more partitions containing virtual machine data components, and wherein the virtual machine data components include virtual disk data and non-disk data; and

a virtualization system hosting a virtualization layer and including a virtual machine supported by the virtualization layer, the virtual machine having a guest operating system running therein;

wherein the virtualization layer conceals the non-disk data from the guest operating system by:

receiving a request from the guest operating system;

modifying the request and sending the modified request to the storage system to conceal the non-disk data;

receiving a response to the request from the storage system and modifying the response to conceal the modified request; and

sending the modified response to the guest operating system.

6. The apparatus of claim 5 , wherein one of the one or more partitions includes a virtual disk for the virtual machine, and the virtualization layer does not conceal the virtual disk to the guest operating system of the virtual machine.

7. The apparatus of claim 5 ,

wherein the non-disk data includes state data of the virtual machine; and

wherein the virtualization layer prevents circumvention of the virtualization layer securing the state data of the virtual machine by encrypting the state data.

8. The apparatus of claim 5 , wherein the at least one storage unit comprises a unit in a network storage unit.

9. The apparatus of claim 5 , wherein

one of the one or more partitions includes a primary virtual disk and a secondary virtual disk for the virtual machine, and

the virtualization layer does not conceal the primary virtual disk and the secondary virtual disk to the guest operating system of the virtual machine.

10. The apparatus of claim 9 , wherein the one of the one or more partitions includes a virtual disk partition and the primary virtual disk and the secondary virtual disk reside in the virtual disk partition.

11. The apparatus of claim 5 , wherein one of the one or more partitions includes virtual hardware configuration data and the virtualization layer conceals the virtual hardware configuration data.

12. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the virtual hardware configuration data for the virtual machine includes a processor type, a type of virtual network card, a type of virtual storage host bus adaptor, and an amount of memory.

13. The apparatus of claim 5 , wherein one of the one or more partitions includes virtual snapshot data and the virtualization layer conceals the virtual snapshot data.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 ,

wherein the non-disk data includes state data of the virtual machine; and

wherein the state data is contained in one of the one or more partitions that includes a primary virtual disk and a secondary virtual disk for the virtual machine and the virtualization code conceals the state data but not the primary and secondary virtual disks.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 14 , wherein the one of the one or more partitions includes a virtual disk partition and the primary virtual disk and the secondary virtual disk reside in the virtual disk partition.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the non-disk data includes state data of the virtual machine; and

wherein the state data is included in one of the one or more partitions that includes virtual hardware configuration data and the virtualization code conceals the virtual hardware configuration data and the state data.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 16 , wherein the virtual hardware configuration data for the virtual machine includes a processor type, a type of virtual network card, a type of virtual storage host bus adaptor, and an amount of memory.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 ,

wherein the non-disk data includes state data of the virtual machine; and

wherein the state data is included in a partition of the one or more partitions that includes virtual snapshot data and the virtualization code conceals the virtual snapshot data.

Assignments (2)
CHANGE OF NAME Recorded Apr 15, 2024
From: VMWARE, INC.
To: VMWARE LLC
Reel/Frame 067102/0314 →
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded May 5, 2021
From: HILTGEN, DANIEL K.; SCHMIDT, RENE W.
To: VMWARE, INC.
Reel/Frame 056148/0853 →
Continuity (5)
Continuation 11960524 · Dec 19, 2007
Provisional Application 60871234 · Dec 21, 2006
Provisional Application 60884568 · Jan 11, 2007
Provisional Application 60886072 · Jan 22, 2007
Related Publication 20160275306A1 · Sep 22, 2016