US 2003/0233489 A1Published application

Layered computing systems and methods for insecure environments

AssigneeFsl, L.L.C.

InventorsJared Ricks Blaser, Randall Richards Cook

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Abstract

The inventions relate generally to computer systems having facilities for providing virtual portions of file systems and configuration settings to applications. More particularly, the inventions relate to computer systems that provide a layer organization for files and configuration settings that can be overlaid on top of an operating system, and can later delete the layer organization to restore the computer systems to a clean state. Detailed information on various example embodiments of the inventions are provided in the Detailed Description below, and the inventions are defined by the appended claims.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A set of computer readable media containing computer instructions for operating a layered computing environment in an insecure or public environment, the set of computer readable media comprising at least one medium upon which is stored the computer instructions executable by a computing system to achieve the functions of:

(i) receiving from applications a read request for a read operation to a file system, the read request containing a file reference appropriate to the file system organization;
(ii) a first determining whether or not the file reference is maintained in at least one enabled layer;
(iii) if in the first determining a file reference is found not to be maintained in at least one enabled layer, causing the read operation to execute using the file reference of the read request;
(iv) if in the first determining a file reference is found to be maintained in at least one enabled layer, identifying an owner layer from the set of enabled layers;
(v) following the identifying an owner layer, identifying a virtual read reference utilizing information contained in the layer;
(vi) following the identifying a virtual read reference, causing the read operation to execute using the virtual read reference;
(vii) receiving from applications a write request for a write operation to a file system, the write request containing a file reference appropriate to the file system organization;
(viii) a second determining whether or not the file reference is a reference to a write operation to be captured in an enabled layer;
(ix) if in the second determining a file reference is determined not to be a reference to a write operation to be captured to an enabled read-writable layer, causing the write operation to execute using the file reference of the write request;
(x) if in the second determining a file reference is determined to be a reference to a write operation to be captured to an enabled read-writable layer, identifying a capture layer;
(xi) following the identifying a capture layer, creating a virtual write reference relative to an enabled read-writable layer corresponding to the file reference of the write request;
(xii) following the creating a virtual write reference, causing the write operation to execute using the virtual write reference;
(xiii) receiving management commands through an applications programmer interface;
(xiv) receiving a management command through an applications programmer interface to delete a specified layer;
and
(xv) delete the specified layer.

13 more elements

A computing system supporting a layered computing environment for operation in an insecure or public environment, comprising:

a processor;
a storage device group accessible by said processor, said storage device group containing at least one storage device operable to contain operating system files, applications and layers;
one or more layers stored to said storage device group;
instructions stored to said storage device group, said instructions being further executable by said processor to achieve the functions of:
(i) receiving from applications a read request for a read operation to a file system, the read request containing a file reference appropriate to the file system organization,
(ii) a first determining whether or not the file reference is maintained in at least one enabled layer,
(iii) if in the first determining a file reference is found not to be maintained in at least one enabled layer, causing the read operation to execute using the file reference of the read request,
(iv) if in the first determining a file reference is found to be maintained in at least one enabled layer, identifying an owner layer from the set of enabled layers,
(v) following the identifying an owner layer, identifying a virtual read reference utilizing information contained in the layer,
(vi) following the identifying a virtual read reference, causing the read operation to execute using the virtual read reference,
(vii) receiving from applications a write request for a write operation to a file system, the write request containing a file reference appropriate to the file system organization,
(viii) a second determining whether or not the file reference is a reference to a write operation to be captured in an enabled layer,
(ix) if in the second determining a file reference is determined not to be a reference to a write operation to be captured to an enabled read-writable layer, causing the write operation to execute using the file reference of the write request,
(x) if in the second determining a file reference is determined to be a reference to a write operation to be captured to an enabled read-writable layer, identifying a capture layer,
(xi) following the identifying a capture layer, creating a virtual write reference relative to an enabled read-writable layer corresponding to the file reference of the write request,
(xii) following the creating a virtual write reference, causing the write operation to execute using the virtual write reference,
(xiii) receiving management commands through an applications programmer interface,
(xiv) through an applications programmer interface, receiving a management command to delete a specified layer, and
(xv) delete the specified layer.

16 more elements

A method of operating a layered computing system in an insecure or public environment, the method comprising the steps of:

(i) receiving from applications a read request for a read operation to file systems, the read request each containing a file reference appropriate to the file system organization;
(ii) for received read requests, performing a first determining whether or not the contained file references are maintained in at least one enabled layer;
(iii) if in the first determining file references are found not to be maintained in at least one enabled layer, causing the corresponding read operations to execute using the file references of the read requests;
(iv) if in the first determining file references are found to be maintained in at least one enabled layer, for each file reference identifying an owner layer from the set of enabled layers;
(v) following identifying an owner layer, identifying a virtual read reference utilizing information contained in the identified layer for each file reference;
(vi) following the identifying a virtual read reference, causing read operations to execute using the virtual read references;
(vii) receiving from applications write requests for write operations to file systems, the write requests each containing a file reference appropriate to the file system organization;
(viii) for received write requests, performing a second determining whether or not the contained file references are references to write operations to be captured in an enabled layer;
(ix) if in the second determining file references are determined not to be references to write operations to be captured to an enabled layer, causing the write operations to execute using the file references of the write requests;
(x) if in the second determining file references are determined to be references to write operations to be captured to an enabled layer, identifying a capture layer for each file reference;
(xi) following the identifying a capture layer, creating virtual write references corresponding to the file references of the write requests;
and
(xii) following the creating virtual write references, causing the write operations to execute using the virtual write references,
(xiii) receiving management commands through an applications programmer interface;
(xiv) through an applications programmer interface, receiving management commands to delete specified layers;
and
(xv) delete layers specified through received management commands to delete layers.

14 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.