HARDWARE AUTHENTICATION IN A DISPERSED STORAGE NETWORK

• US 20140351579A1
• Filed: 08/06/2014
• Published: 11/27/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 06/22/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Pure Storage, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Cleversafe Incorporated (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Leggette, Wesley, Resch, Jason K.
• Granted Patent: US 10,409,771 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/156
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0727 in a storage system, e.g. in a DASD or network based storage system drivers for digital recording or reproducing units G06F3/06; circuits for error detection or correction within digital recording or reproducing units G11B20/18; for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS], H04L67/1097
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1092 Rebuilding, e.g. when physically replacing a failing disk
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/141 for bus or memory accesses
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/167 Error detection by comparing the memory output
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/13 File access structures, e.g. distributed indices arrangements of input from, or output to, record carriers G06F3/06
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/137 Hash-based content-based indexing of textual data G06F16/31
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/31 User authentication
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6209 to a single file or object, e.g. in a secure envelope, encrypted and accessed using a key, or with access control rules appended to the object itself
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2211/1028 Distributed, i.e. distributed RAID systems with parity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/043 of tables, e.g. lookup, substitution or mapping
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/30 Compression, e.g. Merkle-Damgard construction
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/34 Encoding or coding, e.g. Huffman coding or error correction
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/56 Financial cryptography, e.g. electronic payment or e-cash
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/80 Wireless network architectures or network communication protocols for wireless network security H04W12/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0428 wherein the data content is protected, e.g. by encrypting or encapsulating the payload
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/06 for supporting key management in a packet data network cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for key management H04L9/08
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/12 Applying verification of the received information cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for data integrity or data verification H04L9/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/06 specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3242 involving keyed hash functions, e.g. message authentication codes [MACs], CBC-MAC or HMAC
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3247 : involving digital signatures
• 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 9/3271 : using challenge-response
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/041 : Key generation or derivation
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/0431 : Key distribution or pre-distribution; Key agreement
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/10 : Integrity
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/35 : Protecting application or service provisioning, e.g. securing SIM application provisioning

Abstract

A method for authenticating a node of a dispersed storage network (DSN). In various embodiments, a dispersed storage (DS) management unit receives a device list originating from a hardware certificate authority (HCA). The HCA also provides a hardware certificate to the node. Upon receiving the hardware certificate from the node, the DS management unit determines if the certificate is valid by comparing it to information contained in the device list (such as a device ID or a serial number associated with the node). If the certificate is valid, the DS management unit sends a challenge message to the node and analyzes the resulting challenge message response to determine if it is valid. If the response is valid, the DS management unit provides a signed certificate to the node for use in authenticating the node to perform dispersed storage operations within the DSN.

Claims

1. A method to authenticate a node in a dispersed storage network (DSN) having a dispersed storage (DS) management unit, the method comprises:

receiving a device list originating from a hardware certificate authority (HCA);

receiving a hardware certificate from the node;

comparing the hardware certificate to the device list to determine if the hardware certificate is valid;

if the hardware certificate is valid, generating a challenge message and sending the challenge message to the node;

receiving a challenge response message from the node; and

determining if the challenge response message is valid.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprises:

receiving, from the node, a certificate signing request relating to the hardware certificate; and

if the challenge response message is valid, providing a signed certificate for use in authenticating the node to perform dispersed storage operations within the DSN.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein at least a portion of the signed certificate is encrypted utilizing a private key associated with the DS managing unit.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the certificate signing request includes at least one of a device identification (ID) associated with the node, a serial number associated with the node, a public key associated with the node, registration information, or a signature.

5. The method of claim 1, the hardware certificate includes at least one of a device ID or a device serial number associated with the node, wherein comparing the hardware certificate to the device list includes determining if the device list contains a corresponding device ID or device serial number.

6. The method of claim 5, the hardware certificate further includes an HCA signature encrypted with a private key associated with the HCA, wherein determining if the hardware certificate is valid further comprises:

receiving a public key associated with the HCA;

generating a hash of the hardware certificate;

decrypting the HCA signature utilizing the HCA public key to produce a decrypted HCA signature; and

comparing the hash of the hardware certificate to the decrypted HCA signature.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the device ID provides a unique virtual identifier for hardware associated with the node, and wherein the device serial number is a unique permanent value associated with the node.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the challenge message includes encrypting at least a portion of the challenge message using a public key associated with the node.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the challenge message includes instructions to encrypt a portion of the challenge message utilizing a private key associated with the node.

10. A dispersed storage (DS) managing unit comprises:

at least one communication interface to communicate with nodes of a dispersed storage network (DSN);

a memory; and

a processing module coupled to the at least one communication interface and the memory, the processing module configured to;

receive, via the at least one communication interface, a device list originating from a hardware certificate authority (HCA);

store the device list in the memory;

receive, via the at least one communication interface, a hardware certificate from a node of the DSN;

compare the hardware certificate to the device list to determine if the hardware certificate is valid;

if the hardware certificate is valid, generate a challenge message; and

send the challenge message to the node of the DSN.

11. The DS managing unit of claim 10, wherein the processing module is further configured to:

receive, via the at least one communication interface, a challenge response message from the node of the DSN;

determine if the challenge response message is valid;

receive, via the at least one communication interface, a certificate signing request relating to the hardware certificate; and

if the challenge response message is valid, send a signed certificate to the node of the DSN for use in authenticating the node within the DSN.

12. The DS managing unit of claim 11, wherein at least a portion of the signed certificate is encrypted utilizing a private key associated with the DS managing unit.

13. The DS managing unit of claim 10, the hardware certificate includes at least one of a device identification (ID) or a device serial number associated with the node of the DSN, wherein the processing module determines that the hardware certificate is valid if the device list includes a corresponding device ID or device serial number.

14. The DS managing unit of claim 13, the hardware certificate further includes an HCA signature for use in validating the hardware certificate, the HCA signature encrypted with a HCA private key, wherein the processing module is further configured to:

generate a hash of the hardware certificate;

decrypt the HCA signature utilizing a HCA public key to produce a decrypted HCA signature; and

compare the hash of the hardware certificate to the decrypted HCA signature to determine if the HCA signature is valid.

15. The DS managing unit of claim 13, wherein the device ID provides a unique virtual identifier for hardware associated with the node of the DSN, and wherein the device serial number is a unique permanent value associated with the node of the DSN.

16. The DS managing unit of claim 10, the processing module further configured to:

encrypt the challenge message using a public key associated with the node of the DSN prior to sending the challenge message to the node.

17. The DS managing unit of claim 10, wherein at least a portion of the challenge message is encrypted utilizing a public key associated with the node of the DSN.

18. The DS managing unit of claim 10, wherein the challenge message includes instructions to encrypt a portion of the challenge message utilizing a private key associated with the node of the DSN.

19. A method to authenticate a node in a dispersed storage network (DSN) having a dispersed storage (DS) management unit, the method comprises:

receiving, by the node, a hardware certificate from a hardware certificate authority (HCA) or a separate element of the DSN;

providing the hardware certificate to the DS management unit;

receiving a challenge message from the DS management unit;

generating a challenge response message based on the challenge message;

providing the challenge response message to the DS management unit; and

requesting a signed certificate from the DS management unit.

20. The method of claim 19 further comprises:

prior to providing the hardware certificate to the DS management unit, validating the hardware certificate and encrypting at least a portion of the hardware certificate utilizing a private key associated with the node.