Abstract:
A method and apparatus for enabling applications on security processors of computer systems. The computer system (10) includes a security architecture such as a Trusted Platform Module (TPM). The system (10) includes an input portion 812), a security portion (14) and a standard portion (16). The input portion (12) includes a variety of different input devices such as a card reader (20), keyboard (22) or fingerprint reader (24). The programmable security processor (26) in the security portion (14) implements a TPM security architecture. A nonvolatile memory (28) is connected to the processor (26). The nonvolatile memory (28) stores a secure table of hash values and endorsement keys which are used to determine whether applications to be loaded on the processor (26) are authorized. Each stored value is derived from a different application that is certified by the associated endorsement key to be executed on the processor.
Abstract:
An arrangement for facilitating remote booting in a diskless client system is described. A hypervisor (140) is first loaded (160) to run under an operating system OS (120). Once loaded, the hypervisor (140) establishes a connection to the central server (170) to load user data, 'hooks disk' access modules and then proceeds along a normal boot path. Each time the OS (120) attempts (175) to access a file on a local hard drive (180), the hypervisor (140) can 'trap' this access, this preventing the communication (185) with the hard drive (180) and reads (190) the requisite data from the server (170). The loading mechanism for the hypervisor utilizes the iSCSI protocol.