Core slicing: closing the gap between leaky confidential VMs and bare-metal cloud
summary
Proposes partitioning a server into static, hardware-enforced slices that remove the hypervisor from the TCB and eliminate CPU-sharing side channels; implements two concrete primitives — lockable filter registers (implemented with RISC‑V PMP) and a secure per‑core reset unit — to bind cores, DRAM ranges and virtual I/O to slices. Prototypes run on RISC‑V (real board with one host and two guest slices) and x86; evaluation shows near bare‑metal performance while preventing cross‑slice memory and interrupt accesses.
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chapters (12)
- 0:00Introduction
- 0:35Overview of confidential VMs
- 1:40Side channels
- 2:14Side channels mitigation
- 3:21Solution to side channels
- 4:17Bare metal cloud
- 5:00Cloud providers
- 7:19Hardware assisted isolation
- 8:23Core slicing example
- 10:14Slice loader
- 12:45Risk 5 invitation
- 13:46Conclusion
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