Patent ID: 9396006
Filing Date: 2016-07-19
CPC Classification: G06F

Claim Text:
1. A computer-implemented method for distributing and verifying authenticity of virtual machine images using digital signatures, the computer-implemented method comprising: dividing, by a computer, a virtual machine image into a plurality of chunks based on operating system pages of the virtual machine image; representing, by the computer, the plurality of chunks of the virtual machine image as a graph, each chunk of the plurality of chunks is represented as a node in the graph and an edge between two nodes in the graph represents a dependency between two chunks represented by the two nodes; signing, by the computer, the graph representing the plurality of chunks of the virtual machine image with a first digital signature; receiving, by the computer, a request for the virtual machine image from a client hypervisor; responsive to receiving the request for the virtual machine image, identifying, by the computer, whether a virtual machine image repository is authentic, wherein the virtual machine image repository contains the virtual machine image; responsive to identifying that the virtual machine image repository is authentic, determining, by the computer, a particular type of the first digital signature to send with the virtual machine image based on a signing policy that includes one or more rules used to determine a specific signing scheme; and responsive to determining the particular type of the first digital signature to send with the virtual machine image, sending, by the computer, the virtual machine image and the first digital signature of that particular type to the client hypervisor that provisions a virtual machine to execute using the virtual machine image.