Partially privileged lightweight virtualization environments

US12164948B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC · US

Inventors

• Amber Tianqi Guo · Bellevue, US
• Frederick J. Smith · Redmond, US
• John A. Starks · Seattle, US
• Lars Reuther · Kirkland, US
• Deepu Chandy Thomas · Bellevue, US
• Hari R. Pulapaka · Redmond, US
• Benjamin M. Schultz · Bellevue, US
• Judy Liu · San Francisco, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Jun 4, 2020
• Grant date: Dec 10, 2024
• Expiry date: Jul 27, 2041

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G06F2009/45587
• WIPO field: Computer technology
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

A fine-grain selectable partially privileged container virtual computing environment provides a vehicle by which processes that are directed to modifying specific aspects of a host computing environment can be delivered to, and executed upon, the host computing environment while simultaneously maintaining the advantageous and desirable protections and isolations between the remaining aspects of the host computing environment and the partially privileged container computing environment. Such partial privilege is provided based upon directly or indirectly delineated actions that are allowed to be undertaken on the host computing environment by processes executing within the partially privileged container virtual computing environment and actions which are not allowed. Aspects of the host computing environment operating system, such as the kernel, are extended to interface with container-centric mechanisms to receive information upon which actions can be allowed or denied by the kernel even if the process attempting such actions would otherwise have sufficient privilege.