Re: [Xen-users] RAM security

[Felix Kuperjans <felix@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

If you enable the "Scrub RAM before freeing it to XEN" in your DomU kernel, it is always overwritten with (I assume random) data before the pages are returned to the pool of free memory. This should also apply on memory freed by shrinking operations (xm mem-set ...) and of course on DomU shutdown.

You should always enable this option, because cryptographic keys, private data etc. would rest in XEN's memory until either another DomU gets it (and can read that) or the Dom0 shuts down (reboot sometimes even preserves RAM, but the hypervisor is scrubbing all RAM which is not assigned to the Dom0, to prevent readable traces after hard resets etc.).

With correct kernel configuration, the DomU memory should be totally safe.

Am 06.12.2010 11:17, schrieb Jonathan Tripathy:

Hi Everyone,

In Xen, is a DomU able to access data in RAM which a previous DomU has stored in the past, but didn't "zero" it?

I understand that this is a problem with physical disks (using phy:/), just wondering if the same stands with RAM

Thanks

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