HIFN(4)

📦 version 12.2, in debian bookworm, debian trixie, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 HIFN(4) — the hifn manual page, bestie edition 💖

okay so. you found the hifn page in the Kernel Interfaces Manual and you're like "what is this thing" — don't worry, I got you. sit down, hydrate, let's go. 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

hifn — the Hifn 7751/7951/7811/7955/7956 crypto accelerator driver 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

so if you want this driver compiled into the kernel, you drop these lines into your kernel config file, exactly like this, no notes:

device crypto
device cryptodev
device hifn

or, alternatively, if you'd rather load it as a module at boot time, you put this line in loader.conf(5):

hifn_load="YES"

slay. that's it. that's the whole vibe. ✨

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

The hifn driver supports various cards containing the Hifn 7751, 7951, 7811, 7955, and 7956 chipsets. yes, all five, it's giving overachiever. 👑

The hifn driver registers itself to accelerate DES, Triple-DES, AES (7955 and 7956 only, ok?), ARC4, MD5, MD5-HMAC, SHA1, and SHA1-HMAC operations for ipsec(4) and crypto(4). that's a whole roster. it ate. 🔥

The Hifn 7951, 7811, 7955, and 7956 will also supply data to the kernel random(4) subsystem. so they're not just crypto girlies, they're also entropy girlies. multitalented fr fr. 🎀

🌈 HARDWARE 🌈

The hifn driver supports various cards containing the Hifn 7751, 7951, 7811, 7955, and 7956 chipsets, such as:

  • Invertex AEON — no longer being made 😭. came as the 128KB SRAM model, or the 2MB DRAM model.
  • Hifn 7751 — the reference board, with 512KB SRAM.
  • PowerCrypt — comes with 512KB SRAM.
  • XL-Crypt — the only board based on the 7811 (which is faster than the 7751 and has a random number generator, iconic).
  • NetSec 7751 — supports the most IPsec sessions, with 1MB SRAM. main character energy honestly.
  • Soekris Engineering vpn1201 and vpn1211 — see http://www.soekris.com/. contains a 7951 and supports symmetric and random number operations.
  • Soekris Engineering vpn1401 and vpn1411 — see http://www.soekris.com/. contains a 7955 and supports symmetric and random number operations.

💜 SEE ALSO 💜

crypt(3), crypto(4), intro(4), ipsec(4), random(4), crypto(9)

go read those too, iykyk. 📚

⭐ HISTORY ⭐

The hifn device driver appeared in OpenBSD 2.7. the hifn device driver was imported to FreeBSD 5.0. a whole glow-up journey. ✨

🚨 CAVEATS 🚨

listen carefully bestie, this part matters. 🙈

The Hifn 9751 shares the same PCI ID. this chip is basically a 7751, but with the cryptographic functions missing. instead, the 9751 is only capable of doing compression. and since we do not currently attempt to use any of these chips to do compression, the 9751-based cards are not useful. periodt. 💀

Support for the 7955 and 7956 is incomplete; the asymmetric crypto facilities are to be added and the performance is suboptimal. it's a work in progress, be nice to it. 🧚

🐛 BUGS 🐛

The 7751 chip starts out at initialization by only supporting compression. a proprietary algorithm, which has been reverse engineered, is required to unlock the cryptographic functionality of the chip. 🔓

it is possible for vendors to make boards which have a lock ID not known to the driver, but all vendors currently just use the obvious ID which is 13 bytes of 0. like. every single one. consistency queens. 👑

and that's the whole page!! 💖✨🎀🦋🌸💅🫶

this was the Debian version, dated October 19, 2009 — yeah she's vintage but she still serves. bye bestie, go encrypt something responsibly! 😭🔥👑

📦 where this page comes from