Frederick Jacobs

US Patent:

20180307829, Oct 25, 2018

Filed:

Nov 21, 2017

Appl. No.:

15/818783

Inventors:

- Palo Alto CA, US
DOUG COVELLI - Cambridge MA, US
JEFFREY W. SHELDON - Palo Alto CA, US
FREDERICK JOSEPH JACOBS - Palo Alto CA, US
DAVID DUNN - BELLEVUE WA, US

International Classification:

G06F 21/53
G06F 3/06
G06F 9/455

Abstract:

Techniques for securely supporting a global view of system memory in a physical/virtual computer system comprising a plurality of physical/virtual CPUs are provided. In one set of embodiments, the physical/virtual computer system can receive an interrupt indicating that a first physical/virtual CPU should enter a privileged CPU operating mode. The physical/virtual computer system can further determine that none of the plurality of physical/virtual CPUs are currently in the privileged CPU operating mode. In response to this determination, the physical/virtual computer system can modify the global view of system memory to include a special memory region comprising program code to be executed while in the privileged CPU operating mode; communicate, to the other physical/virtual CPUs, a signal to enter a stop state in which execution is halted but interrupts are accepted for entering the privileged CPU operating mode; and cause the first physical/virtual CPU to enter the privileged CPU operating mode.