[dm-devel] [PATCH] crypto: mark unused ciphers as obsolete

[Milan Broz]

On 11/09/2020 18:30, Ard Biesheuvel wrote:
> (cc Milan and dm-devel)
> 
> On Fri, 11 Sep 2020 at 19:24, Van Leeuwen, Pascal
> <pvanleeuwen at rambus.com> wrote:
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: linux-crypto-owner at vger.kernel.org <linux-crypto-owner at vger.kernel.org> On Behalf Of Ard Biesheuvel
>>> Sent: Friday, September 11, 2020 4:11 PM
>>> To: linux-crypto at vger.kernel.org
>>> Cc: herbert at gondor.apana.org.au; ebiggers at kernel.org; Ard Biesheuvel <ardb at kernel.org>
>>> Subject: [PATCH] crypto: mark unused ciphers as obsolete
>>>
>>> <<< External Email >>>
>>> We have a few interesting pieces in our cipher museum, which are never
>>> used internally, and were only ever provided as generic C implementations.
>>>
>>> Unfortunately, we cannot simply remove this code, as we cannot be sure
>>> that it is not being used via the AF_ALG socket API, however unlikely.
>>> So let's mark the Anubis, Khazad, SEED and TEA algorithms as obsolete,
>>>
>> Wouldn't the IKE deamon be able to utilize these algorithms through the XFRM API?
>> I'm by no means an expert on the subject, but it looks like the cipher template is
>> provided there directly via XFRM, so it does not need to live in the kernel source.
>> And I know for a fact that SEED is being used for IPsec (and TLS) in Korea.
>>
> 
> I have been staring at net/xfrm/xfrm_algo.c, and as far as I can tell,
> algorithms have to be mentioned there in order to be usable. None of
> the ciphers that this patch touches are listed there or anywhere else
> in the kernel.
> 
>> The point being, there are more users to consider beyond "internal" (meaning hard
>> coded in the kernel source in this context?) and AF_ALG.
>>
> 
> That is a good point, actually, since dm-crypt could be affected here
> as well, hence the CCs.
> 
> Milan (or others): are you aware of any of these ciphers being used
> for dm-crypt?

Cryptsetup/dm-crypt can use them (talking about Seed, Khazad, Anubis, TEA), but I think
there is no real use of these.
(IOW these are used only if someone deliberately uses them - manually specifying on format.)

For dm-crypt. there should be no big harm if these are marked obsolete.

Milan