Abstract: The current document is directed to methods and subsystems for communication between virtualization layers and guest operating systems. A hardware baseboard management controller (“BMC”) provides an out-of-band communications link and management interface to a computer system that can be accessed by a system administrator through a remote console. A virtualization layer may provide a virtualized BMC (“vBMC”) that provides a data-and-command-exchange medium between a guest operating system and the virtualization layer. The virtualization layer may transmit commands, query status and configuration information, and transfer data through this data-and-command-exchange medium to the guest operating system.

Abstract: The current document is directed to methods and subsystems for communication between virtualization layers and guest operating systems. A hardware baseboard management controller (“BMC”) provides an out-of-band communications link and management interface to a computer system that can be accessed by a system administrator through a remote console. A virtualization layer may provide a virtualized BMC (“vBMC”) that provides a data-and-command-exchange medium between a guest operating system and the virtualization layer. The virtualization layer may transmit commands, query status and configuration information, and transfer data through this data-and-command-exchange medium to the guest operating system.

Abstract: An application directed method for substituting a driver for a target device includes the steps of updating a set of hardware identifiers for the target device to include a new hardware device, building a list of drivers based on the set of hardware identifiers that includes the new hardware identifier, and calling into an operating system to cause the operating system to switch the driver for the target device to a new driver which is selected from the list. With this method, a device that has multiple drivers associated therewith can have just one of the drivers substituted, and where multiple devices share the same hardware ID, the driver for just one of the devices can be substituted.

Abstract: A virtual computer system including multiple virtual machines (VMs) is implemented in a single physical computer system. The multiple VMs have their own layer 2 and layer 3 addresses, but they share a common network connection for which only a single layer 2 address may be used, such as in the case of a standard wireless network interface card (NIC) or in the case of multiple NICs and a standard NIC teaming solution. For outgoing data frames from a VM to a network entity outside the virtual computer system, the layer 2 address of the VM contained in the source address field is generally replaced with the layer 2 address of the network connection. For incoming data frames from a network entity to a VM, the layer 2 address of the network connection contained in the destination address field is generally replaced with the layer 2 address of the VM.