Boot Images for Units Under Test via Disposable VMs
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Solution Overview
Problem
Data center equipment manufacturing factories face cyber-attack vulnerabilities due to direct communication between persistent factory servers and units under test, which can lead to intellectual property theft and equipment compromise before shipping.
Innovation Solution
Creating a customized, sandboxed virtual machine and network-bootable boot image for each unit under test, locked to specific cryptographic keys and configuration information, enabling two-way authentication and secure testing without direct access to factory infrastructure.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If persistent factory servers directly communicate with units under test, then testing and configuration can be performed efficiently, but the system becomes vulnerable to cyber-attacks and intellectual property theft
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a disposable virtual machine as an intermediary between the factory server and the unit under test. This virtual machine acts as a sandboxed environment that enables testing and configuration operations while preventing direct access to the factory infrastructure, thus eliminating cyber-attack vulnerabilities while maintaining testing efficiency
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs disposable virtual machines that are created temporarily for each testing session and then destroyed. These short-lived virtual environments provide secure isolation during testing operations, eliminating the security risks associated with persistent direct connections while allowing efficient testing through automated provisioning and teardown
2Ease of operation
If factory servers are accessible by units under test, then configuration and testing operations can be performed, but intellectual property and system security are compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The virtual machine serves as a controlled intermediary that facilitates configuration and testing operations between the unit under test and the factory infrastructure. It provides the necessary accessibility for testing while enforcing security boundaries that protect intellectual property and system integrity
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the system into isolated layers: the unit under test, the sandboxed virtual machine environment, and the protected factory infrastructure. This segmentation allows configuration operations to proceed smoothly while maintaining security boundaries that prevent unauthorized access to sensitive systems
Data Source
AI summary
Example implementations relate to boot images for units under test. In an example implementation, responsive to a unit under test (UUT) being booted to a default boot image, a system receives a key pair from the UUT, creates a unique boot image that includes a private key of the key pair, associates the unique boot image with an identification of the UUT, and registers a MAC address of the UUT. The system may provide the unique boot image to the UUT upon detection of the registered MAC address, authenticate with the UUT using the key pair, and verify that the UUT booted to the unique boot image bears the identification associated with unique boot image. Upon a successful verification, the system may execute a test suite with the UUT.