On Sun, Jul 19, 2020 at 6:00 PM Taylor R Campbell <
riastradh%netbsd.org@localhost> wrote:
>
> I guess we could do that. It's not really that useful -- the only
> application it's good for is in-kernel IPsec. OpenSSL should already
> be able to take advantage of the CPU support in userland -- no kernel
> driver needed.
>
> (I also don't have any 64-bit VIA hardware to test it on, which is why
> I added it only to amd64/ALL to make compile-testing easier.)
>
Considering it is limited usage isn't the kernel module actually more useful, since you can add it to boot config once you really need it? Unless, in-kernel functionality won't work with the kernel module for some reason. Regardless, I was simply looking from the perspective of i386, since it has the module available, why not just to move config for both? I can agree though, that probably there were close to zero users utilizing padlock over the years. Nevertheless, I have two VIA Nano boards, both successfully booted with a padlock engine attached.
P.S. distrib/sets/lists/modules/md.amd64 also needs to include it, in case module is added.
>
> Try comparing
>
> openssl speed aes-256-cbc
> openssl speed -evp aes-256-cbc
>
> and particularly note the user time spent.
>
Unfortunately, testing on three different boards didn't show much difference, even when specifically openssl's padlock engine was used (actually it showed worse results on bigger blocks). Seems like padlock instructions were not utilized in any case, at least if compared to some results posted on the internet. Either I was doing something wrong or openssl needs special patches. It was consistent with Linux results though. I think I was even trying to test ssh with no luck to see tangible improvements. Gave up after a while, not using such this functionality directly, out of curiosity only.
> > > On the side note, same goes to viadrmums module (it's i386 only now)
> > > but at least on VX900 I ended up with the crash, so I guess it may be
> > > incompatible with amd64 (though it builds successfully). Will try to
> > > test VX800 later on.
>
> I haven't tried viadrmums in a while. What was the crash?
I am planning to submit PR once I will retest the driver with the latest images. Actually, it may not be amd64 specific after all. Crash happens during boot on match function, likely newer graphics are unsupported and triggers some kassert?