OSSL(4)

📦 version 15.1, in freebsd 14.5, freebsd 15.1, nixpkgs unstable

👑 OSSL 👑

okay so bestie, real talk — this is ossl(4), straight out of the Kernel Interfaces Manual, section 4, and it's genuinely one of those pages that's short but packed. no cap. let's get into it 💅

✨ NAME ✨

ossl — the driver that's literally just out here using OpenSSL assembly routines. that's the whole vibe. 🫶

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

so if you wanna compile this driver into the kernel, you gotta place these lines in your kernel configuration file, exactly like this:

device crypto
device cryptodev
device ossl

or, alternatively — and this is the lowkey easier route — if you wanna load the driver as a module at boot time, you put this line in loader.conf(5):

ossl_load="YES"

periodt. that's it. 💖

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so here's the lore: the OpenSSL distribution ships architecture-specific implementations for some of the most commonly used cryptographic algorithms. iconic behaviour, honestly.

and what ossl does is add a wrapper around those routines so that in-kernel cryptography consumers — think kernel TLS and IPsec, the main characters — can actually use them. it's giving bridge energy. it's giving connector. 🔥

🎀 architectures it's got implementations for

  • arm64
  • amd64
  • i386

⭐ algorithms it supports

  • AES-CBC
  • AES-GCM (amd64 only — yeah, sorry bestie, that's the rule 🙈)
  • ChaCha20
  • ChaCha20-Poly1305 (RFC 8439)
  • Poly1305
  • SHA1
  • SHA1-HMAC
  • SHA2-224
  • SHA2-224-HMAC
  • SHA2-256
  • SHA2-256-HMAC
  • SHA2-384
  • SHA2-384-HMAC
  • SHA2-512
  • SHA2-512-HMAC

like, look at that list. fourteen algorithms. it ate and left no crumbs. 👑

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

go read these next, iykyk:

💜 HISTORY 💜

the ossl driver first appeared in FreeBSD 13.0. a whole era. 🕰️

💀 quick reminder bestie: AES-GCM is amd64 only — don't come for me if it's not there on your arm64 box, the manpage said it first.

and that's the whole page, bestie — no notes! 🧚💖✨

this cutie pie of a page is from the Debian folks, dated May 4, 2023, and it lives at OSSL(4) — go forth and encrypt responsibly 🎀🦋

📦 where this page comes from