Protocol for trusted platform module recovery through context checkpointing

US7624283B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• International Business Machines Corporation · US

Inventors

• Steven A. Bade · Georgetown, US
• Thomas J. Dewkett · Staatsburg, US
• Nia Letise Kelley · Austin, US
• Siegfried Sutter · Eppelheim, DE
• Helmut H. Weber · Waldenbuch, DE

Key dates

• Filing date: Feb 13, 2006
• Grant date: Nov 24, 2009
• Expiry date: May 17, 2028

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G06F21/57
• WIPO field: Computer technology
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

A computer implemented method for recovering a partition context in the event of a system or hardware device failure. Upon receiving a command from a partition to modify context data in a trusted platform module (TPM) hardware device, a trusted platform module input/output host partition (TMPIOP) provides an encrypted copy of the context data and the command to the TPM hardware device, which processes the command and updates the context data. If the TPM hardware device successfully processes the command, the TMPIOP receives the updated context data from the TPM hardware device and stores the updated context data received in encrypted form in a context data cache or a non-volatile storage off-board the TPM hardware device. If the TPM hardware device fails to successfully process the command, the TMPIOP uses a last valid copy of the context data to retry processing of the command on a different TPM hardware device.