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Using Linux as a Secure Boot Loader for OpenPOWER Servers - Nayna Jain, IBM & Thiago Jung Bauermann

399 views · Published 27 October 2018 · 34:48 · Indexed 10 October 2026

Channel: The Linux Foundation · 2018 · Science & Technology

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Using Linux as a Secure Boot Loader for OpenPOWER Servers - Nayna Jain, IBM India Pvt Ltd & Thiago Jung Bauermann, IBM 

When Linux is used as a secure boot loader, the Integrity Management Architecture (IMA) subsystem provides most of the functionality needed, but has limitations that we identified and addressed. For example, the builtin "secure_boot" command line option and the new build time policies are not flexible enough to support run time decisions based on the firmware's secure boot settings. These policies and settings interact to enable or disable the enforcement of signature verification of a kexec'ed kernel image. IMA-appraisal is also limited to verifying file signatures stored as extended attributes, yet the kernel image often comes from places without extended attribute support. This talk addresses these and other limitations, and describes patch sets that provide a complete solution for Linux as a secure boot loader. 

About Thiago Jung Bauermann
Thiago Bauermann has been working with the Open Source community for more than 10 years, and is a software engineer at IBM's Linux Technology Center working on the Linux kernel for the POWER architecture. Previously, he also worked on GNU GDB for POWER systems and Linux for embedded systems. He holds a Bachelor degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Campinas. 

About Nayna Jain
Nayna Jain is a software designer and developer at IBM India Pvt Ltd in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. Her experience is in the Linux kernel integrity and Trusted Platform Module subsystems, trusted computing, security certifications compliance, and security advocacy. She is currently pursuing an M.S. in the Research Program at the International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore, with a focus on secure multi-party computation. Ms. Jain has been a speaker at India's premier Free and Open Source Conference (FOSS), the Grace Hopper Conference, and Eclipse Bangalore. She is a member of the IEEE, and the Women in Engineering Bangalore Affiliate.

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