Virtual machine images encryption using trusted computing group sealing

• US 8,694,786 B2
• Filed: 10/04/2011
• Issued: 04/08/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 10/04/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Finjan Blue, Inc. (SoftBank Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Bade, Steven A., Pendarakis, Dimitrios, Wilson, George C., Augu, Rajiv, Linton, Jeb R, Wilson, Lee Hardy
• Primary Examiner(s): Shaw, Yin-Chen
• Assistant Examiner(s): MOHAMMADI, FAHIMEH M
• Application Number:
  US13/252,713
• Publication Number:
  US 20130086383A1
• Time in Patent Office: 917 Days
• Field of Search: 713164-168, 713/171, 713/176, 380/47, 380/227, 705 65- 69
• US Class Current: 713/171
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/57 Certifying or maintaining trusted computer platforms, e.g. secure boots or power-downs, version controls, system software checks, secure updates or assessing vulnerabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0897 involving additional devices, e.g. trusted platform module [TPM], smartcard or USB

Abstract

A host machine provisions a virtual machine from a catalog of stock virtual machines. The host machine instantiates the virtual machine. The host machine configures the virtual machine, based on customer inputs, to form a customer'"'"'s configured virtual machine. The host machine creates an image from the customer'"'"'s configured virtual machine. The host machine unwraps a sealed customer'"'"'s symmetric key to form a customer'"'"'s symmetric key. The host machine encrypts the customer'"'"'s configured virtual machine with the customer'"'"'s symmetric key to form an encrypted configured virtual machine. The host machine stores the encrypted configured virtual machine to non-volatile storage.

Claims

1. A method for storing a customized virtual machine, the method comprising:

configuring a host machine to a desired state, wherein the host machine has a trusted platform module;

recording a platform configuration register state based on the desired state;

forming a sealed blob from a private key and a platform configuration register state to verify whether the virtual machine can be executed;

receiving a customer'"'"'s symmetric key at a data center;

encrypting the customer'"'"'s symmetric key with a public key of the data center to form a wrapped customer'"'"'s symmetric key;

storing the wrapped customer'"'"'s symmetric key;

provisioning a virtual machine on the host machine, wherein the virtual machine is selected from a catalog of stock virtual machines;

instantiating the virtual machine on the host machine;

configuring the virtual machine, based on customer inputs, to form a customer'"'"'s configured virtual machine;

creating an image from the customer'"'"'s configured virtual machine;

unwrapping the wrapped customer'"'"'s symmetric key to form a copy of the customer'"'"'s symmetric key;

encrypting the customer'"'"'s configured virtual machine with the copy of the customer'"'"'s symmetric key to form an encrypted configured virtual machine; and

storing the encrypted configured virtual machine to non-volatile storage.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the method is stored as computer-readable program instructions in one or more computer-readable, tangible storage devices and

wherein computer-readable program instructions can be executed by one or more processors.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the method is executed in a computer system comprising one or more processors, one or more computer-readable memories, one or more computer-readable, tangible storage devices and

wherein the method is stored as computer-readable program instructions, which can be executed by the one or more processors via the one or more memories.

4. A method for executing a customer'"'"'s configured virtual machine, the method comprising:

configuring a host machine to a desired state, wherein the host machine has a trusted platform module;

recording a platform configuration register state based on the desired state;

forming a sealed blob from a private key and a platform configuration register state;

receiving a customer selection of an encrypted configured virtual machine image;

obtaining the sealed blob from a data structure controlled by a data center;

unsealing the sealed blob to form a data center private key, wherein unsealing further comprises;

determining whether the host machine has the current trusted platform state to match a first trusted platform state of the host machine, and in response, decrypting a customer'"'"'s symmetric key with the data center private key, wherein the first trusted platform state of the host machine corresponds to a time during which the sealed blob was created;

decrypting the customer'"'"'s configured virtual machine from the encrypted configured virtual machine; and

executing the customer'"'"'s configured virtual machine on a host processor of the host machine.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the private key is created by a data center operator.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the private key is stored in a hardware security module.

7. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

storing the sealed blob in the data structure, wherein storing the sealed blob further comprises sending the sealed blob to a second host machine owned by a data center operator; and

repeatedly performing the configuring, the recording, the forming and the storing for each host among a plurality of hosts to form a sealed blob per each host among the plurality of hosts, wherein each sealed blob corresponds to a host identifier, one corresponding to each host, and each sealed blob is stored in association with each host identifier.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein storing further comprises:

obtaining the private key by unsealing the private key from a sealed blob using a trusted platform module platform configuration register (PCR).

9. The method of claim 4, wherein the data structure is stored in a lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP) server.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the data structure comprises a database.

11. The method of claim 4, wherein the encrypted configured virtual machine image is an image of a virtual machine stored in a form configured according to a customer'"'"'s preferences, which is encrypted prior to storage.

12. The method of claim 4, wherein the method is stored as computer-readable program instructions in one or more computer-readable, tangible storage devices and

computer-readable program instructions, which are stored on the one or more storage devices and when executed by one or more processors, perform the method of claim 4.

13. The method of claim 4, wherein the method is executed in a computer system comprising one or more processors, one or more computer-readable memories, one or more computer-readable, tangible storage devices and wherein the method is stored as

computer-readable program instructions, which can be executed by the one or more processors via the one or more memories.