Linux 5.5 Crypto Code Has The Changes To Usher In WireGuard

The cryptography subsystem changes for the Linux 5.5 kernel are notable.

The main addition to the crypto area for this next kernel cycle is carrying the patches that adopt some elements of the Zinc crypto effort led by WireGuard's Jason Donenfeld. The lack of Zinc support in the mainline Linux kernel has been the main blocker from merging this secure VPN tunnel into the kernel, but now the crypto folks have decided to integrate some of the best pieces of its design and with time some other Zinc bits could still get merged too. But what's landing for Linux 5.5 is enough to unblock the crypto dependency in WireGuard. With that said, WireGuard should land in Linux 5.6 if the final reviews go well but sadly not in time for this new 5.5 cycle.

Also notable with Linux 5.5 is finishing the transition to SKCIPHER so that the async block cipher "BLKCIPHER" / "ABLKCIPHER" code can finally be removed.

There is also now added blake2b and blake2s algorithm support, curve25519 KPP algorithm, scalar accelerated ChaCha code for ARM, accelerated 32r2 code from Zinc for the MIPS architecture, a HiSilicon TRNG driver and HPRE accelerator code, and various other crypto driver bits.

More details on the crypto changes for what will be the first major kernel release of 2020 can be found via this pull request.