Re: [TrouSerS-users] TPM choice

[Lorenzo C. <sul...@id...>]

Hi Kent,

On Tue, Jul 19, 2005 at 10:50:33AM -0500, Kent Yoder wrote:
> On 7/19/05, Lorenzo Cavallaro <sul...@id...> wrote:
> > Greetings,
> >=20
> >    I am not sure this is the right place to ask for such a question -- =
so
> >    please forgive me -- but what kind of IA-32 motherboard with TPM sup=
port
> >    would you suggest to me?
>=20
>   Right now, all I have access to are machines with Atmel 1.1.0.6
> chips (I don't know if its possible to find out this version number
> before buying a machine).  These chips are fairly stripped down, in

   That's nice :-) Could you suggest me what are those motherboards you have
   access to, please (model number and manufacturer would suffice)? It is
   quite hard to find detailed information on manufacturers' site so I would
   like to buy something I know it will work with tpmdd [1].

> that they only implement the minimum requirements the TPM 1.1 spec
> requires in some places.  Its my understanding the the NSC chip is
> more featureful  but may be slower.  This is really all heresay about
> the NSC chip though based on other user's reports.  Anyone out there
> with a NSC chip please correct me if I'm wrong.  There are also chips
> out there made by infineon, which I have no knowledge of.  According
> to this story (http://www.physorg.com/news3854.html) HP is planning on
> shipping desktops with 1.2 TPMs already.  If you really want features,
> these would be the ones to buy, although trousers will only be getting
> 1.2 features slowly over the coming months. Everything implemented by
> trousers now should work fine).

   Even if it is not a must right now, it will be better to get a TPM=20
   version 1.2 keeping in mind that TrouSerS is going to be v1.2 compliant
   (in the [near] future).

> > [1] either http://sf.net/projects/tpmdd or
> > http://www.research.ibm.com/gsal/tcpa/TPM-2.0.tar.gz which I think are =
the
> > same, isn't it?
>=20
>   The TPM-2.0.tar.gz package is software written by IBM research and
> released separately by them.  That driver was adapted and eventually
> has become the tpmdd SF project, which has now been accepted into the
> Linux 2.6.12 kernel.  Both currently work with trousers, but the tpmdd
> project now has infineon, NSC and Atmel support and will be updated
> for 1.2.

   Thanks a lot for the clarification :-). I would be interested in posting
   few questions on the IBM-based TPM driver too, but I guess here won't be
   the right place to ask for :-\

> Kent

TIA, bye
Lorenzo

[1] even if I had the chance to play a little bit with TCG-based TPs for my=
 MS
thesis, I've never had the opportunity to try them out in reality. I guess =
the
moment has arrived :-) ...nevertheless to say that it would be interesting =
to
get [in]directly involved in TrouSerS development someway... (just a though=
t)

--=20
Lorenzo `Gigi Sullivan' Cavallaro <sul...@se...>
GPG key at http://security.dico.unimi.it/~sullivan/sullivan.asc

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