Patent ID: 8812876
Filing Date: 2014-08-19
Classification: G06F,H04L

Abstract:
1. A computer system comprising a physical processor and machine readable memory for storing software for execution by the processor of a physical computer, the software including: virtualization software for running a virtual machine (VM) on the physical computer, the virtual machine having guest software accessible by a user via the virtualization software, the virtualization software providing a virtual disk for storing data accessible to the guest software, the VM having a configuration file and a virtual disk file stored on a non-volatile data store accessible by the physical processor, the configuration file storing configuration information for the virtual machine and the virtual disk file storing disk data that is accessed upon guest software accessing the data on the virtual disk; and cryptographic software for encrypting data written to the configuration file and the virtual disk file on behalf of the virtualization software, and decrypting data read from the configuration file and the virtual disk file on behalf of the virtualization software; wherein the virtualization software accesses contents of the configuration file via the cryptographic software to determine what virtual system hardware to emulate for the VM, and disk reads and writes to the virtual disk by the guest software are redirected by the virtualization software to the virtual disk file via the cryptographic software in a manner transparent to operation of the guest software.