Secure boot of a data breakout appliance with multiple subsystems at the edge of a mobile data network
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsWilliam F. Berg, Ronald L. Billau, Jeremiah D. Carlin, Vincenzo V. Di Luoffo
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A secure boot is provided for a breakout system having multiple subsystems at the edge of a mobile data network. The secure boot utilizes two trusted platform modules (TPM) to secure multiple subsystems. Further described is utilizing a first TPM to boot a service processor and then utilizing a second TPM to secure boot two additional subsystems. Booting of the final subsystem is accomplished in a two step process which first loads a boot loader and verifies the boot loader, and then second loads an operating system load image and verifies the operating system code.
Claims12
An apparatus comprising:
- a first subsystem having a load image and a first trusted platform module (TPM) with platform configuration registers (PCRs), wherein the first subsystem boots from a load image and provides hash values to the PCRs of the first TPM;
- a second subsystem that receives a bootloader from the first subsystem and upon booting provides a hash value to the PCRs of the first TPM;
- and
- wherein security of the first subsystem and the second subsystem combined is verified by digitally signing the contents of the PCRs and sending a result to a management system to be compared to a known good value.
A mobile data network comprising:
- a breakout system associated with one of a plurality of basestations, where the plurality of basestations each communicate with a corresponding antenna that transmits and receives radio signals to and from user equipment, wherein the plurality of basestations are part of a radio access network that communicates with a core network in the mobile data network, the breakout system further comprising:
- a service processor with a first trusted platform module (TPM) having PCRs, and a load image, wherein the service processor boots from the load image and provides hash values to the PCRs in the first TPM;
- a system controller having a load image and a second TPM with PCRs, wherein the system controller boots from the load image and provides hash values to the PCRs of the second TPM;
- a telco breakout subsystem that receives a bootloader from the system controller and upon booting provides a hash value to the PCRs of the second TPM;
- and
- wherein the security of the service processor, system controller and telco breakout subsystem combined is verified by digitally signing the PCR registers of the first TPM and the second TPM and sending a result to a management system to be compared to a known good value.
12-20. (canceled)
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.