Trusted Compute PoolsOverviewTrusted compute pools enable administrators to designate a group of compute hosts as
"trusted". These hosts use hardware-based security features, such as Intel's Trusted
Execution Technology (TXT), to provide an additional level of security. Combined with an
external standalone web-based remote attestation server, cloud providers can ensure that
the compute node is running software with verified measurements, thus they can establish
the foundation for the secure cloud stack. Through the Trusted Computing Pools, cloud
subscribers can request services to be run on verified compute nodes.The remote attestation server performs node verification through the following steps:Compute nodes boot with Intel TXT technology enabled.The compute node's BIOS, hypervisor and OS are measured.These measured data is sent to the attestation server when challenged by
attestation server.The attestation server verifies those measurements against good/known
database to determine nodes' trustworthiness.A description of how to set up an attestation service is beyond the scope of this
document. See the Open Attestation project for an open source project that can be used to
implement an attestation service.Configuring the Compute service to use Trusted Compute PoolsThe Compute service must be configured to with the connection information for the attestation
service. The connection information is specified in the
trusted_computing section of nova.conf. Specify the following
parameters in this section.serverHostname or IP address of the host that runs the attestation
serviceportHTTPS port for the attestation serviceserver_ca_fileCertificate file used to verify the attestation server's
identity.api_urlThe attestation service URL path.auth_blobAn authentication blob, which is required by the attestation
service.Add the following lines to /etc/nova/nova.conf in
the DEFAULT and trusted_computing sections to
enable scheduling support for Trusted Compute Pools, and edit the details of the
trusted_computing section based on the details of your
attestation
service.[DEFAULT]
compute_scheduler_driver=nova.scheduler.filter_scheduler.FilterScheduler
scheduler_available_filters=nova.scheduler.filters.all_filters
scheduler_default_filters=AvailabilityZoneFilter,RamFilter,ComputeFilter,TrustedFilter
[trusted_computing]
server=10.1.71.206
port=8443
server_ca_file=/etc/nova/ssl.10.1.71.206.crt
# If using OAT v1.5, use this api_url:
api_url=/AttestationService/resources
# If using OAT pre-v1.5, use this api_url:
#api_url=/OpenAttestationWebServices/V1.0
auth_blob=i-am-openstackRestart the nova-compute and nova-scheduler services after making these changes.Specify trusted flavorsOne or more flavors must be configured as "trusted". Users can then request trusted
nodes by specifying one of these trusted flavors when booting a new instance. Use the
nova flavor-key set command to set a flavor as
trusted. For example, to set the m1.tiny flavor as trusted:#nova flavor-key m1.tiny set trust:trusted_host trustedA user can request that their instance runs on a trusted host by specifying a trusted
flavor when invoking the nova boot command.