System and method for security and privacy aware virtual machine checkpointing
AssigneeThe Research Foundation for The State University of New York
InventorsPing Yang, Kartik Gopalan
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A checkpointing method for creating a file representing a restorable state of a virtual machine in a computing system, comprising identifying processes executing within the virtual machine that may store confidential data, and marking memory pages and files that potentially contain data stored by the identified processes; or providing an application programming interface for marking memory regions and files within the virtual machine that contain confidential data stored by processes; and creating a checkpoint file, by capturing memory pages and files representing a current state of the computing system, which excludes information from all of the marked memory pages and files.
Claims18
A checkpointing method for creating a file representing a restorable state of a virtual machine in a computing system, comprising:
- at least one of:
- (a) identifying processes executing within the virtual machine that may store confidential data;
- and marking memory pages and files that potentially contain data stored by the identified processes;
- and
- (b) providing an application programming interface for marking memory regions and files within the virtual machine that contain confidential data stored by processes;
- and
- creating a checkpoint file, by capturing memory pages and files representing a current state of the computing system, which excludes information from all of the marked memory pages and files.
A checkpointing system, adapted to create a file representing a restorable state of a virtual machine in a computing system, comprising an automated processor configured to at least one of:
- (a) identify processes executing within the virtual machine that may store confidential data;
- and marking memory pages and files that potentially contain data stored by the identified processes;
- and (b) provide an application programming interface for marking memory regions and files within the virtual machine that contain confidential data stored by processes;
- and to create a checkpoint file, by capturing memory pages and files representing a current state of the computing system, which excludes information from all of the marked memory pages and files;
- and a memory configured to store the checkpoint file.
A nontransitory computer readable medium which stores instructions to control a programmable processor to creating a checkpoint file representing a restorable state of a virtual machine in a computing system, comprising:
- instructions to control the automated processor to at least one of:
- (a) identify processes executing within the virtual machine that may store confidential data;
- and mark memory pages and files that potentially contain data stored by the identified processes;
- and
- (b) provide an application programming interface for marking memory regions and files within the virtual machine that contain confidential data stored by processes;
- and
- instructions to control the automated processor to create a checkpoint file, by capturing memory pages and files representing a current state of the computing system, which excludes information from all of the marked memory pages and files.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.