In-place encryption of a swap file on a host machine
AssigneeVMware, Inc.
InventorsIshan Banerjee, Preeti Agarwal, Valeriy Zhuravlev, Nick M Ryan, Mohammed Junaid Ahmed
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Systems and methods are described for encrypting a swap file in a computer system. The swap file can be encrypted by a background process executing on the computer system. Processing of paging swapping operations occurs independently and separately of the background encryption of the swap file. Processing a page swapping operation can include decrypting or encrypting data to be swapped involved in the paging operation depending on the paging operation and whether or not the data to be swapped is encrypted or not.
Claims18
A method comprising:
- performing, by a computing system, swapping operations to swap in and swap out pages of memory between a main memory of the computer system and a swap file in response to occurrence of page faults;
- and
- performing, by the computing system, an encryption operation that includes encrypting each page of memory that is stored in the swap file and updating information associated with said each page of memory to indicate said each page of memory is encrypted, the encryption operation being performed independently of the occurrence of the page faults and without coordination with the swapping operations,
- wherein a swapping operation on a page of memory to be swapped includes encrypting or decrypting the page of memory depending on whether the swapping operation is a swap-in operation or a swap-out operation and depending on whether information associated the page of memory indicates the page of memory is encrypted or not encrypted.
A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon computer executable instructions, which when executed by a computer device, cause the computer device to:
- perform swapping operations to swap in and swap out pages of memory between a main memory of the computer system and a swap file in response to occurrence of page faults;
- and
- perform an encryption operation that includes encrypting each page of memory that is stored in the swap file and updating information associated with said each page of memory to indicate said each page of memory is encrypted, the encryption operation being performed independently of the occurrence of the page faults and without coordination with the swapping operations,
- wherein a swapping operation on a page of memory to be swapped includes encrypting or decrypting the page of memory depending on whether the swapping operation is a swap-in operation or a swap-out operation and depending on whether information associated the page of memory indicates the page of memory is encrypted or not encrypted.
An apparatus comprising:
- one or more computer processors;
- and
- a computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions for controlling the one or more computer processors to be operable to:
- perform swapping operations to swap in and swap out pages of memory between a main memory of the computer system and a swap file in response to occurrence of page faults;
- and
- perform an encryption operation that includes encrypting each page of memory that is stored in the swap file and updating information associated with said each page of memory to indicate said each page of memory is encrypted, the encryption operation being performed independently of the occurrence of the page faults and without coordination with the swapping operations,
- wherein a swapping operation on a page of memory to be swapped includes encrypting or decrypting the page of memory depending on whether the swapping operation is a swap-in operation or a swap-out operation and depending on whether information associated the page of memory indicates the page of memory is encrypted or not encrypted.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.