RE: [PATCH] crypto: tcrypt - fix return value for multiple subtests

["Elliott, Robert (Servers)" <elliott@hpe.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Anirudh Venkataramanan <anirudh.venkataramanan@intel.com>
> Sent: Friday, September 30, 2022 5:10 PM
> To: Elliott, Robert (Servers) <elliott@hpe.com>; herbert@gondor.apana.org.au;
> davem@davemloft.net; jarod@redhat.com; linux-crypto@vger.kernel.org; linux-
> kernel@vger.kernel.org
> Subject: Re: [PATCH] crypto: tcrypt - fix return value for multiple subtests
> 
> On 9/30/2022 2:40 PM, Robert Elliott wrote:
> > When a test mode invokes multiple tests (e.g., mode 0 invokes modes
> > 1 through 199, and mode 3 tests three block cipher modes with des),
> > don't keep accumulating the return values with ret += tcrypt_test(),
> > which results in a bogus value if more than one report a nonzero
> > value (e.g., two reporting -2 (-ENOENT) end up reporting -4 (-EINTR)).
> > Instead, keep track of the minimum return value reported by any
> > subtest.
> 
> I am assuming this is for the case when fips_enabled is true?

I have some other unposted patches that print more info on the
test progress including the return values at various levels.
The Fedora 36 .config on x86 yields 23 -2 (ENOENT) errors, so
the overall result is -46 (which is defined as EPFNOSUPPORT).

> I agree that returning the cumulative sum or errors isn't particularly
> useful, but how is returning the minimum error value useful? Wouldn't it
> be more useful to return the first error return?

The first error would be more useful, but would require more complex
changes. Is there any kernel macro that would handle this in one line?

  tmp = tcrypt_test();
  if (tmp && !ret)
    ret = tmp;

Since do_test() and tcrypt_test() are static inline functions
only used within this file, a new argument containing a pointer
to the return value could be added that lets them handle
updating it while keeping the callers simple.

   ret += tcrypt_test("md5");
could become
   tcrypt_test("md5", &ret);