Memory protection in embedded systems

With reference to an embedded system featuring no support for memory management, we present a model of a protection system based on passwords and keys. At the hardware level, our model takes advantage of a memory protection unit (MPU) interposed between the processor and the complex of the main memory and the input-output devices. The MPU supports both concepts of a protection context and a protection domain. A protection context is a set of access rights for the memory pages; a protection domain is a set of one or more protection contexts. Passwords are associated with protection domains. A process that holds a key matching a given password can take advantage of this key to activate the corresponding domain. A small set of protection primitives makes it possible to modify the composition of the domains in a strictly controlled fashion. The proposed protection model is evaluated from a number of salient viewpoints, which include key distribution, review and revocation, the memory requirements for storage of the information concerning protection, and the time necessary for key validation.