Trusted Computing Platforms: TCPA Technology in Context

Managing Authorization in the Key Hierarchy

As described in the previous section, the design of a TPM Protected Storage key hierarchy, and decisions as to who has control or usage rights over what keys, both lie with the TPM owner. The complexity of managing authorization data for access to TPM functionality will depend completely on the key hierarchy structure. A TP administrator, or TPM owner, will therefore have to design the key hierarchy and authorization management. That design work will be done with the tools used by the administrator.

This section will look at those responsibilities of the TP's administrator, and describe the mechanisms that can help simplify management of a group of TPs by a single administrator. This section will not ...