UBSEC(4)

📦 version 11.0, in nixpkgs unstable

🦋 bestie, meet ubsec(4): the Broadcom and BlueSteel uBsec 5x0x crypto accelerator 🦋

🌸 NAME 🌸

ubsec — Broadcom and BlueSteel uBsec 5x0x crypto accelerator. That's the whole name, and honestly? It ate. 💅

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

ubsec* at pci? dev ? function ?

🎀 DESCRIPTION 🎀

Okay so the ubsec driver is out here supporting cards that contain any of these chips, bestie:

  • Bluesteel 5501 — The original chipset, no longer made. This extremely rare unit was not very fast, lacked an RNG, and had a number of other bugs. 😭
  • Broadcom BCM5801 — A BCM5805 without public key engine or random number generator.
  • Broadcom BCM5802 — A slower version of the BCM5805.
  • Broadcom BCM5805 — Faster version of Bluesteel 5601.
  • Broadcom BCM5820 — 64 bit version of the chip, and significantly more advanced.
  • Broadcom BCM5821 — Faster version of the BCM5820. This is the chip found on the Sun Crypto Accelerator 1000. 👑
  • Broadcom BCM5822 — Faster version of the BCM5820.
  • Broadcom BCM5823 — Faster version of the BCM5822 that also supports AES.
  • Broadcom BCM5825 — Faster PCI Express or PCI-X version of the chip.
  • Broadcom BCM5860 — IPSec/SSL Security Processor that is faster and has more features.
  • Broadcom BCM5861 — Faster version of the BCM5860.
  • Broadcom BCM5862 — Faster version of the BCM5861.

The ubsec driver registers itself to accelerate DES, Triple-DES, MD5, SHA1, MD5-HMAC, and SHA1-HMAC operations for opencrypto(9), and thus for ipsec(4) and crypto(4). The driver also supports acceleration of AES-CBC with the BCM5823 or newer. Slay. 🔥

On those models which contain a public key engine (almost all of the more recent ones), this feature is registered with the crypto(4) subsystem. 🫶

On all models except the Bluesteel 5501 and Broadcom 5801, the driver registers itself to provide random data to the rnd(4) subsystem. RNG havers, rise. ✨

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

iykyk, go read those next. 💜

🦋 HISTORY 🦋

The ubsec device driver appeared in OpenBSD 2.8. The ubsec device driver was imported to FreeBSD 5.0, back-ported to FreeBSD 4.8, and subsequently imported to NetBSD 2.0. A whole journey, fr fr. 🎀

💀 BUGS 💀

The BCM5801 and BCM5802 have not actually been tested.

bestie. they have not actually been tested. that's the whole bug note. proceed with the appropriate amount of side-eye. 🙈

This lil page is brought to you by the Debian crew, dated June 13, 2018 — mwah, and byeee bestie 💖🌸

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