Secure Hardware MMU with Host-ID Checks for Shared Memory
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Updating memory management units (MMUs) across multiple hosts in a shared memory environment poses vulnerabilities to data privacy, performance degradation, and reduced efficiency due to the dynamic nature of MMU updates, necessitating synchronization for efficient memory allocation, deallocation, and sharing.
Innovation Solution
A hardware-based memory management unit (MMU) is implemented to ensure secure and efficient memory management across multiple hosts, utilizing a hardware memory manager and a hardware page table to manage memory access and synchronization.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If MMU updates are performed dynamically across multiple hosts, then memory allocation and sharing flexibility is improved, but data privacy security deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
A hardware-based memory management unit (MMU) acts as an intermediary between multiple hosts and the shared memory system. The MMU includes a memory management controller that mediates all memory access requests, performing security checks and synchronization operations to ensure data privacy while enabling flexible memory allocation across hosts.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces software-based memory management with a hardware-based MMU implementation. The hardware MMU provides deterministic security checks and synchronization operations, eliminating vulnerabilities associated with software implementations and ensuring consistent data privacy protection across multiple hosts.
2Reliability
If MMU updates are synchronized across multiple hosts, then data privacy security is improved, but system performance deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The hardware MMU performs security checks and synchronization operations in advance of actual memory access operations. The memory management controller validates memory allocation requests and updates MMU state before hosts access memory, preventing security violations rather than detecting them during access operations.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements page table circuitry that maintains copies of memory management information in the hardware MMU. This allows multiple hosts to reference consistent memory mappings without requiring continuous synchronization of the actual page tables, reducing overhead while maintaining security.
3Reliability
If hardware-based MMU is implemented, then data privacy security is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The hardware MMU is segmented into distinct functional blocks: a memory management controller for security checks and coordination, page table circuitry for storing memory mappings, and interface circuitry for communicating with hosts. This modular segmentation makes the complex hardware structure more manageable and maintainable.
4Productivity
If multiple hosts share common memory, then resource utilization efficiency is improved, but vulnerability to data privacy attacks increases
Solution Approach 1:
The hardware MMU serves as an intermediary layer between multiple hosts and shared memory, performing security checks on all memory access requests. The memory management controller validates host identifiers, checks memory allocation permissions, and ensures proper synchronization, thereby protecting against data privacy attacks while enabling efficient memory sharing.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces vulnerable software-based memory management with a hardware-based MMU that provides deterministic security enforcement. The hardware implementation ensures that security checks cannot be bypassed or subverted by malicious software, protecting shared memory from data privacy attacks while maintaining efficient resource utilization.
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3(A)
AI summary
Techniques for hardware-based secure memory management. An example apparatus comprises: a NoC interconnect fabric; first interface circuitry to couple host processors to the NoC interconnect fabric; a hardware memory manager coupled to the NoC interconnect fabric, the hardware memory manager comprising: page table circuitry to store page management information in a plurality of page table entries (PTEs), each PTE corresponding to a TLB entry, the page management information including a host identifier (ID) field to indicate a host processor associated with the PTE entry; a memory management controller to perform security checks on commands received from the host processors, wherein responsive to a first command from a first host processor to perform an allocation or deallocation of a first TLB entry, the memory management controller is to prevent the allocation or deallocation if a first host ID if the first PTE does not correspond to the first host processor.