Linux 5.11 Will ChaCha Faster With ARM Network Packets, New Keem Bay Crypto Driver

The cryptography subsystem within the Linux kernel is constantly seeing new hardware drivers and other improvements with the current Linux 5.11 cycle being no different.

Herbert Xu sent in the crypto updates on Monday for Linux 5.11 and has already landed into the mainline kernel.

On the performance front, the crypto changes should yield better performance of ChaCha and AEGIS128 for ARM network packets. The ChaCha performance optimizations for ARM network packets should be particularly useful especially with WireGuard making use of ChaCha20 for that secure VPN tunnel.

Upstream work around Intel's Keem Bay SoC also continues for that ARM-based chip for their latest-generation Movidius VPU. The crypto pull brings the new "keembay" driver that implements support for the hardware's Offload Crypto Subsystem (OCS) and accelerates AES/SM4 operations. This new driver that provides hardware-accelerated SKCIPHER/AEAD complements the earlier Keem Bay OCS HCU driver for accelerated AHASH.

The crypto work for Linux 5.11 also adds QAT 4xxx device support, a HiSilicon PRNG driver, and various other updates. More details via the crypto pull that as mentioned is now part of the mainline Linux Git code.