Technology to protect virtual machines from malicious virtual machine managers
AssigneeIntel Corporation
InventorsDavid M. Durham, Karanvir S. Grewal, Sergej Deutsch, Michael Lemay
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Systems, apparatuses and methods may provide for technology that associates a key domain of a plurality of key domains with a customer boot image, receives the customer boot image from the customer, and verifies the integrity of the customer boot image that is to be securely installed at memory locations determined from an untrusted privileged entity (e.g., a virtual machine manager).
Claims16
A system comprising:
- a system agent that manages actions for an associated guest virtual machine that is to be provisioned;
- and
- a semiconductor hardware device provided between the system agent and memory of the system, the semiconductor hardware device comprising:
- a substrate;
- and
- logic coupled to the substrate, wherein the logic is implemented at least partly in one or more of configurable logic or fixed-functionality hardware logic, the logic coupled to the substrate working in conjunction with the system agent to:
- associate, using a key for a customer, a key domain of a plurality of key domains with a customer boot image associated with the guest virtual machine, the key being unknown to a virtual machine manager associated with the guest virtual machine;
- receive the customer boot image from the customer;
- partition, by at least the system agent, the customer boot image as a sequence of protocol data units (PDUs);
- load content of each PDU of the sequence of PDUs consecutively into a sequential page of the memory, wherein each page is loaded into a page table of the guest virtual machine and the logic keeps track of loading using a global transaction count for the key domain and a location in memory of the page;
- and
- verify an integrity of the customer boot image that is to be installed in the key domain by checking, using the key, a value calculated using the page location, content, and the global transaction count of each of the loaded PDUs.
A semiconductor package apparatus of a system including a system agent that manages actions of an associated quest virtual machine that is to be provisioned, the semiconductor package apparatus comprising:
- a substrate;
- and
- logic coupled to the substrate, wherein the logic is implemented at least partly in one or more of configurable logic or fixed-functionality hardware logic, the logic coupled to the substrate working in conjunction with the system agent to:
- associate, using a key for a customer, a key domain of a plurality of key domains with a customer boot image associated with the guest virtual machine, the key being unknown to a virtual machine manager associated with the guest virtual machine;
- receive the customer boot image from a customer;
- partition, in conjunction with the system agent, the customer boot image as a sequence of protocol data units (PDUs);
- load content of each PDU of the sequence of PDUs consecutively into a sequential page in a memory, wherein each page is loaded into a page table of the guest virtual machine and the logic keeps track of loading using a global transaction count for the key domain and a location in memory of the page;
- and
- verify an integrity of the customer boot image that is to be installed in the key domain by checking, using the key, a value calculated using the page location, content and the global transaction count of each of the loaded PDUs.
A method performed by a logic of a semiconductor hardware device in conjunction with a system agent, executing on the semiconductor hardware device, wherein the system agent manages actions of an associated quest virtual machine that is to be provisioned and the logic is implemented at least partly in one or more of configurable logic or fixed-functionality hardware logic of the semiconductor hardware device, the method comprising:
- associating, using a key for a customer, a key domain of a plurality of key domains with a customer boot image associated with the guest virtual machine, the key being unknown to a virtual machine manager associated with the guest virtual machine;
- receiving the customer boot image from a customer;
- partitioning, by at least the system agent, the customer boot image as a sequence of protocol data units (PDUs);
- loading content of each PDU of the sequence of PDUs consecutively into a sequential page of a memory, wherein each page is loaded into a page table of the guest virtual machine and the logic keeps track of loading using a global transaction count for the key domain and a location in memory of the page;
- and
- verifying an integrity of the customer image that is to be installed in the key domain by checking, using the key, a value calculated using the page location, content, and the global transaction count of each of the loaded PDUs.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.