Patent ID: 7930487

Claim:
A method of securing access to shared storage by a plurality of hosts includes the steps of: detecting an access request from a user, the access request being associated with at least one block of the shared storage and the user being associated with a host; wherein there is an access control source running on the host and wherein the access control source is communicatively coupled to a buffer cache; wherein the buffer cache is located on the host; monitoring the buffer cache, wherein the buffer cache is disposed between the user and the shared storage, to identify a block to be committed to storage, the block to be committed being associated with a buffered user and a buffered access type; retrieving access control information associated with the block from the coupled access control source; and responsive to the access control information indicating that the user is authorized to perform the requested access on the block, forwarding the access request to the shared storage for servicing and storing the access request in the buffer cache.