Protected guests in a hypervisor controlled system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2017003996-A1
Application number	US-201514788992-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jul 1, 2015
Priority date	Jul 1, 2015
Publication date	Jan 5, 2017
Grant date	—

Abstract

A computer-implemented method includes receiving a definition of a source guest memory area for utilization by a virtual machine on a source system, wherein the source system includes a source trusted firmware and a source hypervisor. The method restricts write access to the source guest memory area of the virtual machine. The method receives repeatedly a source guest memory page location, content for each of a plurality of source guest memory pages, and an integrity value for each of a plurality of source guest memory page locations. The method receives a global integrity value for integrity values associated with the plurality of source guest memory page locations, wherein a latest integrity values for each of the plurality of source guest memory page locations is utilized. Subsequent to verifying the global integrity value, the method initializes the virtual machine on the source hypervisor.

First claim

1 - 14 . (canceled)

15 . A computer program product comprising:
one or more computer readable tangible storage media and program instructions stored on at least one of the one or more storage media, the program instructions comprising: program instructions to receive a definition of a source guest memory area for utilization by a virtual machine on a source system, wherein the source system includes a source trusted firmware and a source hypervisor; program instructions to restrict write access to the source guest memory area of the virtual machine; program instructions to receive repeatedly from the source hypervisor, a source guest memory page location, content for each of a plurality of source guest memory pages, and an integrity value for each of a plurality of source guest memory page locations; program instructions to receive a global integrity value for integrity values associated with the plurality of source guest memory page locations, wherein a latest integrity value for each of the plurality of source guest memory page locations is utilized; and program instructions to, subsequent to verifying the global integrity value received from the source hypervisor matches the integrity values, initialize the virtual machine on the source hypervisor.

16 . The computer program product of claim 15 , further comprising program instructions, stored on the one or more computer readable storage media, which when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:
manage a configuration of the virtual machine on the source system, wherein the source system includes a private key accessible by the source trusted firmware; and verify the integrity values for the virtual machine, received with the definition of the source guest memory area, according to a secret guest key associated with the virtual machine accessible only by the source trusted firmware.

17 . The computer program product of claim 16 , further comprising program instructions, stored on the one or more computer readable storage media, which when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:
remove access rights to a first source guest memory page from the virtual machine; compute a first integrity value for the first source guest memory page; and subsequent to storing the first integrity value in memory accessible to the source trusted firmware, grant write access to the first source guest memory page to the source hypervisor, wherein the first source guest memory page is an evicted guest memory page.

18 . The computer program product of claim 17 , further comprising program instructions, stored on the one or more computer readable storage media, which when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:
restrict write access to the evicted guest memory page; verify the first integrity value stored for a location of the evicted guest page location matches content of the evicted guest memory page; and subsequent to determining the verification fails, restore write access to the evicted guest memory page.

19 . The computer program product of claim 17 , wherein the source hypervisor is obtaining the first integrity value of the evicted guest memory page.

20 . A computer system comprising:
one or more computer processors; one or more computer readable storage media; and program instructions stored on the computer readable storage media for execution by at least one of the one or more computer processors, the program instructions comprising: program instructions to receive a definition of a source guest memory area for utilization by a virtual machine on a source system, wherein the source system includes a source trusted firmware and a source hypervisor; program instructions to restrict write access to the source guest memory area of the virtual machine; program instructions to receive repeatedly from the source hypervisor, a source guest memory page location, content for each of a plurality of source guest memory pages, and an integrity value for each of a plurality of source guest memory page locations; program instructions to receive a global integrity value for integrity values associated with the plurality of source guest memory page locations, wherein a latest integrity value for each of the plurality of source guest memory page locations is utilized; and program instructions to, subsequent to verifying the global integrity value received from the source hypervisor matches the integrity values, initialize the virtual machine on the source hypervisor.

21 . The computer program product of claim 17 , further comprising program instructions, stored on the one or more computer readable storage media, which when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:
restrict write access to the evicted guest memory page; verify the first integrity value stored for a location of the evicted guest page location matches content of the evicted guest memory page; and subsequent to determining the verification succeeds, grant write access to the evicted page by the virtual machine.

22 . The computer program product of claim 17 , further comprising program instructions, stored on the one or more computer readable storage media, which when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:
compute the global integrity value of the integrity values for the plurality of source guest memory pages, wherein the plurality of source guest memory pages include submitted, evicted, or content filled pages; terminate the virtual machine; and grant the source hypervisor access to the global integrity value.

23 . The computer program product of claim 22 , further comprising program instructions, stored on the one or more computer readable storage media, which when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:
send the secret guest key to verify the integrity values encrypted by a public key of a target trusted firmware of a target system; continuously evict the plurality of source guest memory pages from the virtual machine; request integrity values for a plurality of evicted guest memory pages; continuously send content of the plurality of evicted guest memory pages, locations of the plurality of evicted guest memory pages, and integrity values for the plurality of evicted guest memory pages to a target hypervisor on the target system; subsequent to the target hypervisor continuously submitting the plurality of evicted guest memory pages, locations, and integrity values to the target trusted firmware of the target system, terminate the virtual machine on the source hypervisor; and send the global integrity value of the terminated virtual machine to the target hypervisor, wherein the target hypervisor submits the global integrity value to the target trusted firmware of the target system.

24 . The computer program product of claim 23 , further comprising program instructions, stored on the one or more computer readable storage media, which when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:
subsequent to sending content, locations, and integrity values of the plurality of evicted guest memory pages, send a new location, new content, and associated integrity value for at least one of the source guest memory pages to the target hypervisor; and send the global integrity value for integrity values associated with the plurality of source guest memory page locations to the target hypervisor that submits the global integrity value to the target trusted firmware of the target system, wherein a latest integrity value for each of the plurality of source guest memory page locations of the terminated virtual machine is utilized.

25 . The computer program product of claim 24 , further comprising program ins

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Bacher Utz
• Buendgen Reinhard T
• Carstens Heiko
• Dingel Dominik

Classifications

• G06F2009/45587

  Isolation or security of virtual machine instances · CPC title

• G06F9/45558 Primary

  Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects · CPC title

• G06F12/145

  the protection being virtual, e.g. for virtual blocks or segments before a translation mechanism · CPC title

• G06F2212/151

  Emulated environment, e.g. virtual machine · CPC title

• G06F2009/45562

  Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances · CPC title