Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1759426AbYJIMxm (ORCPT ); Thu, 9 Oct 2008 08:53:42 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1758671AbYJIMxY (ORCPT ); Thu, 9 Oct 2008 08:53:24 -0400 Received: from gprs189-60.eurotel.cz ([160.218.189.60]:40815 "EHLO UNKNOWN" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-FAIL) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1758084AbYJIMxX (ORCPT ); Thu, 9 Oct 2008 08:53:23 -0400 Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 14:53:11 +0200 From: Pavel Machek To: "Cihula, Joseph" Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, "Wang, Shane" , "Wei, Gang" , "Van De Ven, Arjan" , "Mallick, Asit K" , "Nakajima, Jun" , Chris Wright , Jan Beulich , mingo@elte.hu, tytso@mit.edu Subject: Re: [RFC][PATCH 0a/3] TXT: Intel(R) Trusted Execution Technology support for Linux - Overview Message-ID: <20081009125311.GD1623@ucw.cz> References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1892 Lines: 49 Hi! > Value Proposition for Linux or "Why should you care?" > ===================================================== > > While there are many products and technologies that attempt to measure > or > protect the integrity of a running kernel, they all assume the kernel is > "good" to begin with. The Integrity Measurement Architecture (IMA) and > Linux > Integrity Module interface are examples of such solutions. > > To get trust in the initial kernel without using Intel TXT, a static > root of > trust must be used. This bases trust in BIOS starting at system reset > and > requires measurement of all code executed between system reset through > the > completion of the kernel boot as well as data objects used by that code. > In > the case of a Linux kernel, this means all of BIOS, any option ROMs, the > bootloader and the boot config. In practice, this is a lot of > code/data, much > of which is subject to change from boot to boot (e.g. changing NICs may > change > option ROMs). Without reference hashes, these measurement changes are > difficult to assess or confirm as benign. This process also does not > provide DMA protection, memory configuration/alias checks and locks, > crash > protection, or policy support. Ok, I don't get it, why would I want to measure my kernel? I see why Disney would want to do that, but I don't see why we would want to help them. Plus, the fact that trusted mode is pretty much incompatible with s3/s4 makes it useless, right? So what is this good for? -- (english) http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek (cesky, pictures) http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/picture/horses/blog.html -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/