Secure IVSHMEM: End-to-End Shared-Memory Protocol with Hypervisor-CA Handshake and In-Kernel Access Control

2025-05-25

AI Summary

IVSHMEM lacks built-in security mechanisms, rendering it vulnerable to eavesdropping and tampering—thus unsuitable for high-assurance environments. This paper proposes an end-to-end trusted shared memory protocol that achieves mutual authentication and fine-grained access control for zero-copy inter-VM communication—a first in the domain. Key contributions include: (1) a lightweight Hypervisor-CA handshake mechanism (<200 ms per session), (2) hardware-assisted channel isolation, (3) kernel-module-level access enforcement, and (4) application-layer abstraction optimizations. Experimental evaluation shows the protocol incurs ≤5% increase in data-plane round-trip latency over baseline IVSHMEM, with negligible bandwidth overhead. It delivers strong security guarantees while preserving near-native performance—making it suitable for safety- and real-time-critical domains such as automotive electronics.

Technology Category

• Multiagent Systems: Agent Communication
• Application Domains: Security
• Machine Learning: Hardware-aware ML

Application Category

• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Virtualization and resource management in Web systems and infrastructures
• Semantics and Knowledge: Provenance, trust, security and privacy, and ethical issues in managing semantic data

Abstract

In-host shared memory (IVSHMEM) enables high-throughput, zero-copy communication between virtual machines, but today's implementations lack any security control, allowing any application to eavesdrop or tamper with the IVSHMEM region. This paper presents Secure IVSHMEM, a protocol that provides end-to-end mutual authentication and fine-grained access enforcement with negligible performance cost. We combine three techniques to ensure security: (1) channel separation and kernel module access control, (2)hypervisor-mediated handshake for end-to-end service authentication, and (3)application-level integration for abstraction and performance mitigation. In microbenchmarks, Secure IVSHMEM completes its one-time handshake in under 200ms and sustains data-plane round-trip latencies within 5% of the unmodified baseline, with negligible bandwidth overhead. We believe this design is ideally suited for safety and latency-critical in-host domains, such as automotive systems, where both performance and security are paramount.

Problem

• Lack of security control in IVSHMEM allowing eavesdropping or tampering
• Need for end-to-end mutual authentication in shared-memory protocols
• Requirement for fine-grained access enforcement with minimal performance impact

Innovation

• Kernel module enforces fine-grained access control
• Hypervisor mediates end-to-end service authentication
• Application-level integration reduces performance impact