SECM: Securely and efficiently connections setup using RDMA-CM

Abstract

Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) releases the potential of the data center as it bypasses the kernel. However, establishing and managing RDMA connections is a significant challenge due to the complex topology of RDMA networks. We present SECM, a secure and efficient RDMA Communication Management (CM) library, which can be used for distributed or resilient RDMA network connection setup. The main idea is to split the RDMA-CM connection setup phase, reuse resources between different connections, and perform multiple connection setups simultaneously in a pipelined manner. At the same time, adding message authentication codes to the CM protocol enables authentication of connection requests and prevents malicious connection requests. SECM establishes 16 connections in 1.42 times the time of 1 connection, tens or hundreds of times faster than verbs. SECM is compatible with existing commercial RNICs and provides services in a user-state-driven manner, with low CPU overhead, low memory usage, and no impact on the RDMA data level.