Re: [PATCH 0/7] crypto: switch to static calls for CRC-T10DIF

[Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@kernel.org>]

On Mon, 11 Jan 2021 at 22:05, Eric Biggers <ebiggers@kernel.org> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Jan 11, 2021 at 05:52:30PM +0100, Ard Biesheuvel wrote:
> > CRC-T10DIF is a very poor match for the crypto API:
> > - every user in the kernel calls it via a library wrapper around the
> >   shash API, so all callers share a single instance of the transform
> > - each architecture provides at most a single optimized implementation,
> >   based on SIMD instructions for carryless multiplication
> >
> > In other words, none of the flexibility it provides is put to good use,
> > and so it is better to get rid of this complexity, and expose the optimized
> > implementations via static calls instead. This removes a substantial chunk
> > of code, and also gets rid of any indirect calls on architectures that
> > obsess about those (x86)
> >
> > If this approach is deemed suitable, there are other places where we might
> > consider adopting it: CRC32 and CRC32(C).
> >
> > Patch #1 does some preparatory refactoring and removes the library wrapper
> > around the shash transform.
> >
> > Patch #2 introduces the actual static calls, along with the registration
> > routines to update the crc-t10dif implementation at runtime.
> >
> > Patch #3 updates the generic CRC-T10DIF shash driver so it distinguishes
> > between the optimized library code and the generic library code.
> >
> > Patches #4 to #7 update the various arch implementations to switch over to
> > the new method.
> >
> > Special request to Peter to take a look at patch #2, and in particular,
> > whether synchronize_rcu_tasks() is sufficient to ensure that a module
> > providing the target of a static call can be unloaded safely.
> >
> > Cc: "Martin K. Petersen" <martin.petersen@oracle.com>
> > Cc: Eric Biggers <ebiggers@google.com>
> > Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
> >
> > Ard Biesheuvel (7):
> >   crypto: crc-t10dif - turn library wrapper for shash into generic
> >     library
> >   crypto: lib/crc-t10dif - add static call support for optimized
> >     versions
> >   crypto: generic/crc-t10dif - expose both arch and generic shashes
> >   crypto: x86/crc-t10dif - convert to static call library API
> >   crypto: arm/crc-t10dif - convert to static call library API
> >   crypto: arm64/crc-t10dif - convert to static call API
> >   crypto: powerpc/crc-t10dif - convert to static call API
> >
> >  arch/arm/crypto/Kconfig                     |   2 +-
> >  arch/arm/crypto/crct10dif-ce-glue.c         |  58 ++------
> >  arch/arm64/crypto/Kconfig                   |   3 +-
> >  arch/arm64/crypto/crct10dif-ce-glue.c       |  85 ++---------
> >  arch/powerpc/crypto/crct10dif-vpmsum_glue.c |  51 +------
> >  arch/x86/crypto/crct10dif-pclmul_glue.c     |  90 ++----------
> >  crypto/Kconfig                              |   7 +-
> >  crypto/Makefile                             |   2 +-
> >  crypto/crct10dif_common.c                   |  82 -----------
> >  crypto/crct10dif_generic.c                  | 100 +++++++++----
> >  include/linux/crc-t10dif.h                  |  21 ++-
> >  lib/Kconfig                                 |   2 -
> >  lib/crc-t10dif.c                            | 152 +++++++++-----------
> >  13 files changed, 204 insertions(+), 451 deletions(-)
> >  delete mode 100644 crypto/crct10dif_common.c
>
> There is already a library API for two other hash functions, BLAKE2s and
> Poly1305, which takes advantage of architecture-specific implementations without
> using static calls.  Also, those algorithms are likewise also exposed through
> the shash API, but in a different way from what this patchset proposes.
>
> Is there a reason not to do things in the same way?  What are the advantages of
> the new approach that you're proposing?
>

The current approach uses build time dependencies - i.e., if you
decide to build the accelerated implementation, you always have to
load it, even if the accelerated implementation cannot be used on the
system in question, and it is up to that code to use fallbacks for
everything, This was kind of a compromise on my part when we were
having the crypto library vs Wireguard discussion - I mentioned at the
time that [in my opinion] it was a temporary approach because static
call support was taking so long to arrive. (lwn article here [0] but
the links in it seem to be dead). It also results in some nasty
Kconfig dependencies because building the generic code into the kernel
and building the accelerated code as a module gives problems.

I agree that having different approaches for doing the same thing is
suboptimal, but I think the situation may be slightly different for
plain SIMD code such as blake2 and poly1305 versus crc implementations
based on carryless multiplication instructions which may be rare but
10-20x faster if they are supported.

So in summary, I think this approach is better. The generic code can
be built in and superseded by module code, and there are no
dependencies going both ways.

There are some complications as well, though:
- module softdeps don't work {afaik) if the depender is builtin
- our poly1305 implementations use a different layout for the state
that is passed between the init/update/final calls, so it may be
tricky to use a similar approach there.




[0] https://lwn.net/Articles/802376/