On 17/06/2019 11:15, Ard Biesheuvel wrote: >> I will also add that going the skcipher route rather than shash will >> allow hardware tfm providers like CryptoCell that can do the ESSIV >> part in hardware implement that as a single API call and/or hardware >> invocation flow. >> For those system that benefit from hardware providers this can be beneficial. >> > > Ah yes, thanks for reminding me. There was some debate in the past > about this, but I don't remember the details. > > I think implementing essiv() as a skcipher template is indeed going to > be the best approach, I will look into that.
For ESSIV (that is de-facto standard now), I think there is no problem to move it to crypto API. The problem is with some other IV generators in dm-crypt. Some do a lot of more work than just IV (it is hackish, it can modify data, this applies for loop AES "lmk" and compatible TrueCrypt "tcw" IV implementations). For these I would strongly say it should remain "hacked" inside dm-crypt only (it is unusable for anything else than disk encryption and should not be visible outside). Moreover, it is purely legacy code - we provide it for users can access old systems only. If you end with rewriting all IVs as templates, I think it is not a good idea. If it is only about ESSIV, and patch for dm-crypt is simple, it is a reasonable approach. (The same applies for simple dmcryp IVs like "plain" "plain64", "plain64be and "benbi" that are just linear IVs in various encoded variants.) Milan
