xref: /dpdk/doc/guides/cryptodevs/mlx5.rst (revision debb27ea344242ef0c5c6577e0187ac1d64ca429)
1.. SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-3-Clause
2   Copyright (c) 2021 NVIDIA Corporation & Affiliates
3
4.. include:: <isonum.txt>
5
6MLX5 Crypto Driver
7==================
8
9The MLX5 crypto driver library
10(**librte_crypto_mlx5**) provides support for **Mellanox ConnectX-6**
11family adapters.
12
13Overview
14--------
15
16The device can provide disk encryption services,
17allowing data encryption and decryption towards a disk.
18Having all encryption/decryption operations done in a single device
19can reduce cost and overheads of the related FIPS certification,
20as ConnectX-6 is FIPS 140-2 level-2 ready.
21The encryption cipher is AES-XTS of 256/512 bit key size.
22
23MKEY is a memory region object in the hardware,
24that holds address translation information and attributes per memory area.
25Its ID must be tied to addresses provided to the hardware.
26The encryption operations are performed with MKEY read/write transactions,
27when the MKEY is configured to perform crypto operations.
28
29The encryption does not require text to be aligned to the AES block size (128b).
30
31For security reasons and to increase robustness, this driver only deals with virtual
32memory addresses. The way resources allocations are handled by the kernel,
33combined with hardware specifications that allow handling virtual memory
34addresses directly, ensure that DPDK applications cannot access random
35physical memory (or memory that does not belong to the current process).
36
37The PMD uses ``libibverbs`` and ``libmlx5`` to access the device firmware
38or to access the hardware components directly.
39There are different levels of objects and bypassing abilities.
40To get the best performances:
41
42- Verbs is a complete high-level generic API.
43- Direct Verbs is a device-specific API.
44- DevX allows to access firmware objects.
45
46Enabling ``librte_crypto_mlx5`` causes DPDK applications
47to be linked against libibverbs.
48
49In order to move the device to crypto operational mode, credential and KEK
50(Key Encrypting Key) should be set as the first step.
51The credential will be used by the software in order to perform crypto login, and the KEK is
52the AES Key Wrap Algorithm (rfc3394) key that will be used for sensitive data
53wrapping.
54The credential and the AES-XTS keys should be provided to the hardware, as ciphertext
55encrypted by the KEK.
56
57When crypto engines are defined to work in wrapped import method, they come out
58of the factory in Commissioning mode, and thus, cannot be used for crypto operations
59yet. A dedicated tool is used for changing the mode from Commissioning to
60Operational, while setting the first import_KEK and credential in plaintext.
61The mlxreg dedicated tool should be used as follows:
62
63- Set CRYPTO_OPERATIONAL register to set the device in crypto operational mode.
64
65  The input to this tool is:
66
67  - The first credential in plaintext, 40B.
68  - The first import_KEK in plaintext: kek size 0 for 16B or 1 for 32B, kek data.
69
70  Example::
71
72     mlxreg -d /dev/mst/mt4123_pciconf0 --reg_name CRYPTO_OPERATIONAL --get
73
74  The "wrapped_crypto_operational" value will be "0x00000000".
75  The command to set the register should be executed only once, and all the
76  values mentioned above should be specified in the same command.
77
78  Example::
79
80     mlxreg -d /dev/mst/mt4123_pciconf0 --reg_name CRYPTO_OPERATIONAL \
81     --set "credential[0]=0x10000000, credential[1]=0x10000000, kek[0]=0x00000000"
82
83  All values not specified will remain 0.
84  "wrapped_crypto_going_to_commissioning" and  "wrapped_crypto_operational"
85  should not be specified.
86
87  All the device ports should set it in order to move to operational mode.
88
89- Query CRYPTO_OPERATIONAL register to make sure the device is in Operational
90  mode.
91
92  Example::
93
94     mlxreg -d /dev/mst/mt4123_pciconf0 --reg_name CRYPTO_OPERATIONAL --get
95
96  The "wrapped_crypto_operational" value will be "0x00000001" if the mode was
97  successfully changed to operational mode.
98
99
100Driver options
101--------------
102
103- ``class`` parameter [string]
104
105  Select the class of the driver that should probe the device.
106  `crypto` for the mlx5 crypto driver.
107
108- ``wcs_file`` parameter [string] - mandatory
109
110  File path including only the wrapped credential in string format of hexadecimal
111  numbers, represent 48 bytes (8 bytes IV added by the AES key wrap algorithm).
112
113- ``import_kek_id`` parameter [int]
114
115  The identifier of the KEK, default value is 0 represents the operational
116  register import_kek..
117
118- ``credential_id`` parameter [int]
119
120  The identifier of the credential, default value is 0 represents the operational
121  register credential.
122
123
124Supported NICs
125--------------
126
127* Mellanox\ |reg| ConnectX\ |reg|-6 200G MCX654106A-HCAT (2x200G)
128
129
130Limitations
131-----------
132
133- AES-XTS keys provided in xform must include keytag and should be wrapped.
134- The supported data-unit lengths are 512B and 1KB. In case the `dataunit_len`
135  is not provided in the cipher xform, the OP length is limited to the above
136  values and 1MB.
137
138
139Prerequisites
140-------------
141
142- Mellanox OFED version: **5.3**
143  see :doc:`../../nics/mlx5` guide for more Mellanox OFED details.
144
145- Compilation can be done also with rdma-core v15+.
146  see :doc:`../../nics/mlx5` guide for more rdma-core details.
147