Improving Xen security through disaggregation

Abstract

Virtual machine monitors (VMMs) have been hailed as the basis for an increasing number of reliable or trusted computing systems. The Xen VMM is a relatively small piece of software -- a hypervisor -- that runs at a lower level than a conventional operating system in order to provide isolation between virtual machines: its size is offered as an argument for its trustworthiness. However, the management of a Xen-based system requires a privileged, full-blown operating system to be included in the trusted computing base (TCB).