Measured Boot

Measured Boot is a mechanism to ensure that the integrity of the firmware and software running on a SLX hardware platform is maintained. This is ensured by the calculating a hash of the values of each stage in the boot process and comparing these values with the values stored on a remote verification server.

During device boot, before each stage of the boot process is executed, a measurement of the stage to be executed is calculated and extended (copied) to the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip. Once the device completes booting, these measurements are verified with a remote server and if an issue is discovered, the administrators of the device are notified.

Unlike the Secure Boot process, where the boot process is aborted when an error is encountered, the Measured Boot process allows the device to come up completely and alerts the device administrators of any issue encountered during the process.

The measured-boot command enables the Measured Boot feature on a SLX device. This feature is disabled by default.

Supported Platforms

This feature is supported on Extreme 8720 and Extreme 8520 devices.