Re: [RFC PATCH v4] IV Generation algorithms for dm-crypt

[Gilad Ben-Yossef]

On Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 3:21 PM, Ondrej Mosnacek <omosnace@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 2017-03-01 13:42 GMT+01:00 Gilad Ben-Yossef <gilad@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>
> Wouldn't adopting a bulk request API (something like what I tried to
> do here [1]) that allows users to supply multiple messages, each with
> their own IV, fulfill this purpose? That way, we wouldn't need to
> introduce any new modes into Crypto API and the drivers/accelerators
> would only need to provide bulk implementations of common modes
> (xts(aes), cbc(aes), ...) to provide better performance for dm-crypt
> (and possibly other users, too).
>
> I'm not sure how exactly these crypto accelerators work, but wouldn't
> it help if the drivers simply get more messages (in our case sectors)
> in a single call? I wonder, would (efficiently) supporting such a
> scheme require changes in the HW itself or could it be achieved just
> by modifying driver code (let's say specifically for your CryptoCell
> accelerator)?
>
> [1] https://www.mail-archive.com/linux-crypto@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/msg23007.html
>


>From a general perspective - that is things are expect to be true not
just for CryptoCell but for most HW crypto engines,
you want two things - for the HW engine to be able to burst work for a
long time and than rest for a long time vs. a stop and go scheme
(engine utilization)
and for the average IO transaction to be relatively long (bus utilization)

So, a big cluster size i.e. Milan's proposal) works great - you get both.

Submitting a series of sequential small clusters where the HW can
calculate the IV (e.g. Binoy's proposal) works great if the HW
supports it - you get both.

A batched series of small clusters + IV is less favorable - if your HW
engines has lots of parallel context processing (this is expensive for
HW) you might enjoy engine utilization but the bus utilization will be
low - lots of small transactions.

Gilad


-- 
Gilad Ben-Yossef
Chief Coffee Drinker

"If you take a class in large-scale robotics, can you end up in a
situation where the homework eats your dog?"
 -- Jean-Baptiste Queru