Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1754433AbZFVBz7 (ORCPT ); Sun, 21 Jun 2009 21:55:59 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751800AbZFVBzu (ORCPT ); Sun, 21 Jun 2009 21:55:50 -0400 Received: from tundra.namei.org ([65.99.196.166]:41854 "EHLO tundra.namei.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751700AbZFVBzt (ORCPT ); Sun, 21 Jun 2009 21:55:49 -0400 Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:54:35 +1000 (EST) From: James Morris To: Chris Wright cc: Pavel Machek , Joseph Cihula , Ingo Molnar , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, arjan@linux.intel.com, hpa@zytor.com, andi@firstfloor.org, jbeulich@novell.com, peterm@redhat.com, gang.wei@intel.com, shane.wang@intel.com Subject: Re: [RFC v4][PATCH 2/2] intel_txt: Intel(R) TXT and tboot kernel support In-Reply-To: <20090619183414.GG19771@sequoia.sous-sol.org> Message-ID: References: <4A299051.40405@intel.com> <20090619150514.GE1389@ucw.cz> <20090619183414.GG19771@sequoia.sous-sol.org> User-Agent: Alpine 2.00 (LRH 1167 2008-08-23) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1343 Lines: 38 On Fri, 19 Jun 2009, Chris Wright wrote: > * Pavel Machek (pavel@ucw.cz) wrote: > > What are non-evil uses of this code? > > The most common use case I've heard requested from real live > customers[1] is...you guessed it...trusted boot. > > This is typically in the context of virtualization and data centers or > clouds. The concerns being addressed are: > > * confidence that the hardware is running the VMM that the hardware > owner configured it w/, since they are on the hook for providing a > safe service for each VM running on that hardware > > * flip side of that is an additional layer protecting against malicious > VM that is using some VMM hole to try and subvert the host w/ a VMM > of their own Agreed. I'd also mention (again), these slides on the topic by Joanna Rutkowska: http://invisiblethingslab.com/resources/misc09/trusted_computing_thoughts.pdf Also, hardware security measures such as TXT are important in providing stronger mechanisms to ensure that kernel security mechanisms are functioning correctly. - James -- James Morris -- 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/