Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Tue, 10 Apr 2001 20:34:17 -0500 (CDT)
From:      Jonathan Lemon <jlemon@flugsvamp.com>
To:        gunther@aurora.regenstrief.org, net@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: FreeBSD fxp driver, offloading cryptography ...
Message-ID:  <200104110134.f3B1YHN68668@prism.flugsvamp.com>
In-Reply-To: <local.mail.freebsd-net/3AD352CA.179721B@aurora.regenstrief.org>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
In article <local.mail.freebsd-net/3AD352CA.179721B@aurora.regenstrief.org> you write:
>I suppose that we have no good documentation on the crypto functions
>of the Pro/100 S right? How could we get that information? Is anyone
>working on this?

Without documentation on the crypto functions (and I don't have
any at the moment), there will be no support for it.  As you point
out, the Linux driver doesn't include this either, so there isn't
even an implementation to reverse engineer.

Write your friendly Intel representative if you want to try to
improve the situation.


>The driver source for Linux shows tons of definitions for wizardy
>control bits, CPU saver microcode, ethernet frames, TCP/UDP checksum
>calculation, etc., which I can't find in the fxp driver. This means
>to me, that the Intel card can do *much* more than we make it do
>with FreeBSD. We could significantly improve FreeBSD's use of the
>card resulting in better throughput at lower CPU and PCI bus load,
>at least so goes my reckoning.

Much of the extra bits are worthless features, IMO.   The TCP/UDP
checksumming feature on this card doesn't really buy much in terms
of performance.


>How would the KAME/IPsec code make use of the card's crypto chip?
>Does the fact that the NIC hardware can do crypto calculation trouble
>the layered design of KAME/IPsec code? Would it be a big mess to
>circumvent the KAME crypto code and use the Intel hardware instead?
>Is anyone interested and or working on this?

There is interest, yes.  But there will be no progress without
documentation.
--
Jonathan

To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-net" in the body of the message




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200104110134.f3B1YHN68668>