US Patent 11966769 Container instantiation with union file system layer mounts

Computing system enhancements make container instantiation faster, reduce layer content storage demands, and make more container image formats available. A container instantiation location sends a container image pull request to a container registry, receives an image manifest, sends a layer mount request to the registry instead of a layer content download request, receives a layer mount, optionally repeats for additional layers, creates a union file system spanning the layers, and launches a container process based on the union file system without first downloading all the layer content. Inefficiencies and technical limitations of some other approaches are avoided, such as loopback mounts for snapshot expansion, creation or transmission of extra snapshots or extra container image clones, cluttering layer content with virtual machine settings, container system vendor lock-in, lack of container instantiation at a local system due to insufficient local storage, and lack of syscall optimization due to storage driver plugin usage.