Patent ID: 8019837
Filing Date: 2011-09-13
Classification: G06F,H04L

Abstract:
1. A method for assigning an internet protocol (IP) address to a virtual machine, comprising the steps of: tunneling a request for an IP address from one or more guest virtual machines to a dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) server upon boot-up of the one or more guest virtual machines, comprising: an agent on a host machine trapping the request from the virtual machine; and the agent requesting from a tunnel server the IP address for each guest virtual machine by providing a media access control (MAC) address of each guest virtual machine; the tunnel server mask an identity of the one or more guest virtual machines and obtain an IP address for the one or more guest virtual machines based on the media access control (MAC) address of each guest virtual machine comprising: maintaining at the tunnel server, a mapping between each guest virtual machine media access control (MAC) address and a media access control (MAC) address for the host machine for exposure to the dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) server; and the tunnel server requesting from the dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) server an IP address for the media access control (MAC) address of the one or more guest virtual machines; sending to the tunnel server from the dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) the IP address of one or more virtual machines; and the tunnel server tunneling the IP address to the one or more virtual machines via the agent.