Detecting intentional corruption of data in a dispersed storage network

• US 8,782,491 B2
• Filed: 08/16/2012
• Issued: 07/15/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/17/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Pure Storage, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Cleversafe Incorporated (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Resch, Jason K., Dhuse, Greg, Leggette, Wesley, Baptist, Andrew
• Primary Examiner(s): TRIMMINGS, JOHN P
• Application Number:
  US13/587,802
• Publication Number:
  US 20130047057A1
• Time in Patent Office: 698 Days
• Field of Search: 714/6.2, 714/764, 714/770, 711/114
• US Class Current: 714/764
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/00 Error detection; Error correction; Monitoring error detection, correction or monitoring in information storage based on relative movement between record carrier and transducer G11B20/18; monitoring, i.e. supervising the progress of recording or reproducing G11B27/36; in static stores G11C29/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1446 Point-in-time backing up or restoration of persistent data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1612 where the redundant component is persistent storage
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/17331 Distributed shared memory [DSM], e.g. remote direct memory access [RDMA]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/00 Security arrangements for protecting computers, components thereof, programs or data against unauthorised activity
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2211/1028 Distributed, i.e. distributed RAID systems with parity
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/06 Digital input from, or digital output to, record carriers , e.g. RAID, emulated record carriers or networked record carriers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0604 Improving or facilitating administration, e.g. storage management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/16 Obfuscation or hiding, e.g. involving white box
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/00 Cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for secret or secure communications; Network security protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/085 Secret sharing or secret splitting, e.g. threshold schemes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0863 involving passwords or one-time passwords network architectures or network communication protocols for using one-time keys in a packet data network H04L63/067
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0869 involving random numbers or seeds
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0877 using additional device, e.g. trusted platform module [TPM], smartcard, USB or hardware security module [HSM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0894 Escrow, recovery or storing of secret information, e.g. secret key escrow or cryptographic key storage
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/32 including means for verifying the identity or authority of a user of the system or for message authentication, e.g. authorization, entity authentication, data integrity or data verification, non-repudiation, key authentication or verification of credentials
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/321 involving a third party or a trusted authority
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3263 involving certificates, e.g. public key certificate [PKC] or attribute certificate [AC]; Public key infrastructure [PKI] arrangements network architectures or network communication protocols for supporting authentication of entities using certificates in a packet data network H04L63/0823
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

A method begins by a dispersed storage (DS) processing module of a DS unit selecting a data slice for corruption analysis and requesting integrity information for the data slice from one or more other DS units of a dispersed storage network. When the one or more requested integrity information is received, the method continues with the DS processing module analyzing the one or more received integrity information and local integrity information of the data slice stored in the DS unit. When the analysis of the one or more received integrity information and the local integrity information of the data slice is unfavorable, the method continues with the DS processing module identifying the data slice as being corrupted.

Claims

1. A method for detecting intentional corruption of data in a dispersed storage network (DSN), the method comprises:

selecting, by a dispersed storage (DS) unit of the DSN, a data slice for corruption analysis;

requesting, by the DS unit, integrity information for the data slice from one or more other DS units of the DSN;

when the one or more requested integrity information is received, analyzing, by the DS unit, the one or more received integrity information and local integrity information of the data slice stored in the DS unit; and

when the analysis of the one or more received integrity information and the local integrity information of the data slice is unfavorable, identifying, by the DS unit, the data slice as being corrupted.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the local integrity information comprises at least one of:

integrity information of the data slice that is stored in the DS unit; and

integrity information of the data slice that is calculated by the DS unit.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the selecting the data slice comprises one of:

executing a random selection process;

receiving a read request for the data slice;

determining that calculated integrity information does not match the local integrity information stored in the DS unit;

receiving a rebuild request for the data slice; and

receiving an error message regarding the data slice.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the analyzing comprises one of:

verifying concurrency of the one or more received integrity information and the local integrity information; and

verifying that the local integrity information substantially matches a threshold number of the one or more received integrity information.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprises:

selecting the one or more DS units based at least one of;

an arbitrary selection process from a set of DS units, wherein the set of DS units and the DS unit store a set of data slices that includes the data slice;

a security based selection process from the set of DS units; and

a decode threshold number based selection process from the set of DS units.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifying the data slice as being corrupted further comprises:

initiating a rebuilding process to rebuild the identified data slice.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the rebuilding process comprises one of:

a partial rebuilding process in which the identified data slice is rebuilt; and

a rebuilding process in which a data segment is rebuilt from a set of data slices and the data segment is re-encoded to produce a rebuilt data slice.

8. A dispersed storage (DS) module of a DS unit of a dispersed storage network (DSN) comprises:

a first module, when operable within a computing device, causes the computing device to select a data slice for corruption analysis;

a second module, when operable within the computing device, causes the computing device to request integrity information for the data slice from one or more other DS units of the DSN

a third module, when operable within the computing device, causes the computing device to, when the one or more requested integrity information is received, analyze the one or more received integrity information and local integrity information of the data slice stored in the DS unit; and

a fourth module, when operable within the computing device, causes the computing device to, when the analysis of the one or more received integrity information and the local integrity information of the data slice is unfavorable, identify the data slice as being corrupted.

9. The DS module of claim 8, wherein the local integrity information comprises at least one of:

integrity information of the data slice that is stored in the DS unit; and

integrity information of the data slice that is calculated by the DS unit.

10. The DS module of claim 8, wherein the first module, when operable, selects the data slice by one of:

executing a random selection process;

receiving a read request for the data slice;

determining that calculated integrity information does not match the local integrity information stored in the DS unit;

receiving a rebuild request for the data slice; and

receiving an error message regarding the data slice.

11. The DS module of claim 8, wherein the third module, when operable, analyzes by one of:

verifying concurrency of the one or more received integrity information and the local integrity information; and

verifying that the local integrity information substantially matches a threshold number of the one or more received integrity information.

12. The DS module of claim 8 further comprises:

the second module is further operable to select the one or more DS units based at least one of;

an arbitrary selection process from a set of DS units, wherein the set of DS units and the DS unit store a set of data slices that includes the data slice;

a security based selection process from the set of DS units; and

a decode threshold number based selection process from the set of DS units.

13. The DS module of claim 8, wherein the fourth module, when operable, further identifies the data slice as being corrupted by:

initiating a rebuilding process to rebuild the identified data slice.

14. The DS module of claim 13, wherein the rebuilding process comprises one of:

a partial rebuilding process in which the identified data slice is rebuilt; and

a rebuilding process in which a data segment is rebuilt from a set of data slices and the data segment is re-encoded to produce a rebuilt data slice.