Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 09:11:54 -0500 From: Eric Anderson <anderson@centtech.com> To: Michael Sierchio <kudzu@tenebras.com> Cc: security@freebsd.org Subject: Re: hardware crypto and SSL? Message-ID: <3F96902A.8040203@centtech.com> In-Reply-To: <3F968E85.1030902@tenebras.com> References: <20031022032740.GA2605@dub.net> <6.0.0.22.0.20031021233604.0807f8a0@209.112.4.2> <3F9676FB.9020107@centtech.com> <3F968E85.1030902@tenebras.com>
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Michael Sierchio wrote: > Eric Anderson wrote: > >> The new VIA Eden-N processors have built in high-speed AES encryption > > > Forgive me, but that's really not important -- for SSL the bulk > encryption algorithm is usually RC4 (oops, ARCFOUR ;-), which > is efficient in software . It's the handshake and public key > operations that really benefit from the use of HW crypto. I understand - justing tossing it into the ring.. > In which case the currently-supported cards (either by the > OpenBSD /dev/crypto scheme ported by Sam Leffler, or those > directly supported in the OpenSSL engine) all work fine. > > IOW the current Soekris boards help quite a bit, and they > also help because they have a HW RBG which actually stirs > the entropy pool for /dev/random -- very helpful for not > running out of random bits on machines that have no > keyboard or mouse. FWIW, the Eden processors also have a high-speed, high-quality hardware RNG built into them too (of course). Again, just tossing that in. :) The Soekris boxes are great - I have about 70 of them in use now. Actually, I beleive they were trying to get an Eden processor on one of their upcoming models - but I'm not certain about that. Eric -- ------------------------------------------------------------------ Eric Anderson Systems Administrator Centaur Technology All generalizations are false, including this one. ------------------------------------------------------------------
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